← catalogue

Recollections of Europe

by James Fenimore Cooper · English · Gutenberg #19983 · 729,853 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Recollections of Europe
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Recollections of Europe

Author: James Fenimore Cooper


        
Release date: November 30, 2006 [eBook #19983]
                Most recently updated: May 29, 2016

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19983

Credits: Produced by Carlo Traverso, Mireille Harmelin and the Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net. This file was produced from images generously made available by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RECOLLECTIONS OF EUROPE ***




Produced by Carlo Traverso, Mireille Harmelin and the
Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at
http://dp.rastko.net. This file was produced from images
generously made available by the Bibliothèque nationale
de France (BnF/Gallica)








COLLECTION OF ANCIENT AND MODERN BRITISH AUTHORS.

VOL. CLXXII.

RECOLLECTIONS OF EUROPE.

PRINTED BY J. SMITH, 16, RUE MONTMORENCY.




RECOLLECTIONS OF EUROPE.

BY J. FENIMORE COOPER, ESQ.

AUTHOR OF "THE PILOT," "THE SPY", etc.


PARIS, BAUDRY'S EUROPEAN LIBRARY,
RUE DU COQ, NEAR THE LOUVRE.


1837.




CONTENTS.


LETTER I.

Our Embarkation.--Leave-taking.--Our Abigail.--Bay of New York.--The
Hudson.--Ominous Prediction.--The Prophet falsified.--Enter the
Atlantic.--"Land-birds."--Our Master.--Officers of Packet-ships.--Loss
of "The Crisis."--The "Three Chimneys."--Calamities at Sea.
--Sailing-match.--View of the Eddystone.--The Don Quixote.--Comparative
Sailing.--Pilot-boats.--Coast of Dorsetshire.--The Needles.
--Lymington.--Southampton Water.--The Custom-house.


LETTER II.

Controversy at Cowes.--Custom-house Civility.--English Costume.--Fashion
in America.--Quadrilles in New York.--Cowes.--Nautical Gallantry.
English Beauty.--Isle of Wight Butter.--English Scenery.--M'Adamized
Roads.--Old Village Church.--Rural Interment.--Pauper's
Grave.--Carisbrooke Cattle.--Southampton.--Waiter at the Vine.--English
Costume.--Affinity with England.--Netley Abbey.--Southampton Cockneys.


LETTER III.

Road to London.--Royal Pastime.--Cockney Coachman.--Winchester Assizes.
--Approach to London.--The Parks.--Piccadilly.--Street Excursion.
--Strangers in London.--Americans in England.--Westminster Abbey.
--Gothic Decorations.--Westminster Hall.--Inquisitive Barber.--Pasta and
Malibran.--Drury-lane Theatre.--A Pickpocket.--A Fellow-traveller.
--English Gentlemen.--A Radical.--Encampment of Gipsies.--National
Distinctions.--Antiquities.--National Peculiarities.


LETTER IV.

Quit England.--Approach to France.--Havre.--Our Reception there.--Female
Commissionnaire.--Clamour of Drums.--Port of Havre.--Projected
Enterprize.--American Enterprize.--Steam-boat
Excursion.--Honfleur.--Rouen.--French Exaction.--American
Porters.--Rouen Cathedral.--Our Cicerone.--A Diligence.--Picturesque
Road.--European Peasantry.--Aspect of the Country.--Church at
Louviers.--Village near Vernon.--Rosny.--Mantes.--Bourbon Magnificence.
--Approach to Paris--Enter Paris.


LETTER V.

Paris in August 1826.--Montmartre.--The Octroi.--View of Paris.
--Montmorency.--Royal Residences.--Duke of Bordeaux.--Horse-racing.
--The Dauphine.--Popular feeling in Paris.--Royal Equipage.--Gardes du
Corps.--Policy of Napoleon.--Centralization.


LETTER VI.

Letters of Introduction.--European Etiquette.--Diplomatic
Entertainments.--Ladies in Coffee-houses.--French Hospitality.--Mr.
Canning at Paris.--Parisian Hotels.--French Lady at
Washington.--Receptions in Paris and in New York.--Mode of
Announcement.--Republican Affectation.--Hotel Monaco.--Dinner given to
Mr. Canning.--Diplomatic Etiquette.--European Ambassadors.--Prime
Minister of France.--Mr. Canning.--Count Pozzo di Borgo.--Precedency at
Dinner.--American Etiquette.--A French Dinner.--Servants.--Catholic
Fasting.--Conversation with Canning.--English Prejudice against
Americans.


LETTER VII.

English Jurisprudence.--English Justice.--Justice in
France.--Continental Jurisprudence.--Juries.--Legal Injustice.--The Bar
in France.--Precedence of the Law.


LETTER VIII.

Army of France.--Military Display.--Fête of the Trocadero.--Royal
Review.--Royal Ordinance.--Dissatisfaction.--Hostile
Demonstration.--Dispersion of Rioters.--French Cavalry.--Learned
Coachman.--Use of Cavalry.--Cavalry Operations.--The
Conscription.--National Defence.--Napoleon's Marshals.--Marshal
Soult--Disaffection of the Army.


LETTER IX

Royal Dinner.--Magnificence and Comfort.--Salle de Diane.--Prince de
Condé.--Duke of Orleans.--The Dinner-table.--The Dauphin.--Sires de
Coucy.--The Dauphine.--Ancient Usages--M. de Talleyrand.--Charles X.
--Panoramic Procession.--Droll Effect.--The Dinner.--M. de Talleyrand's
Office.--The Duchesse de Berri.--The Catastrophe.--An Aristocratic
Quarrel.


LETTER X.

Road to Versailles.--Origin of Versailles.--The present Chateau.--The
two Trianons.--La Petite Suisse.--Royal Pastime.--Gardens of Versailles.
--The State Apartments.--Marie Antoinette's Chamber.--Death of Louis XV.
--Oeil de Boeuf.--The Theatre and Chapel.--A
Quarry.--Caverns.--Compiègne.--Chateau de Pierre-font.--Influence of
Monarchy.--Orangery at Versailles.


LETTER XI.

Laws of Intercourse.--Americans in Europe.--Americans and English.
--Visiting in America.--Etiquette of Visits.--Presentations at Foreign
Courts.--Royal Receptions.--American Pride.--Pay of the President.
--American Diplomatist.


LETTER XII.

Sir Walter Scott in Paris.--Conversation with him.--Copyright in
America.--Miss Scott.--French Compliments.--Sir Walter Scott's Person
and Manners.--Ignorance as to America.--French Commerce.--French
Translations.--American Luxury.


LETTER XIII.

French Manufactures.--Sèvres China.--Tapestry of the Gobelins.--Paper
for Hangings.--The Savonnerie.--French Carpets.--American Carpets.
--Transfer of old Pictures from Wood to Canvass.--Coronation Coach.
--The Arts in France--in America.--American Prejudice.


LETTER XIV.

False Notions.--Continental Manners.--People of Paris.--Parisian Women.
--French Beauty.--Men of France.--French Soldiers.


LETTER XV.

Perversion of Institutions.--The French Academy.--Laplace.--Astronomy.
--Theatres of Paris.--Immoral Plot.--Artificial Feelings.--French
Tragedy.--Literary Mania.--The American Press.--American
Newspapers.--French Journals--Publishing Manoeuvres.--Madame Malibran.


LETTER XVI.

Environs of Paris.--Village of St. Ouen.--Our House there.--Life on the
River.--Parisian Cockneys.--A pretty Grisette.--Voyage across the
Seine.--A rash Adventurer.--Village Fête.--Montmorency.--View near
Paris.


LETTER XVII.

Rural Drives.--French Peasantry.--View of Montmartre.--The Boulevards.
--The Abattoirs.--Search for Lodgings.--A queer Breakfast.--Royal
Progresses and Magnificence.--French Carriages and Horses.--Modes of
Conveyance.--Drunkenness.--French Criminal Justice.--Marvellous Stories
of the Police.


LETTER XVIII.

Personal Intercourse.--Parisian Society and Hospitality.--Influence of
Money.--Fiacres.--M. de Lameth.--Strife of Courtesy.--Standard of
Delicacy.--French Dinners.--Mode of Visiting.--The Chancellor of France.
--The Marquis de Marbois.--Political Côteries.--Paris Lodgings.--A
French Party.--An English Party.--A splendid Ball.--Effects of good
Breeding.--Characteristic Traits.--Influence of a Court.


LETTER XIX.

Garden of the Tuileries.--The French Parliament.--Parliamentary
Speakers.--The Tribune.--Royal Initiative.--The Charter.--Mongrel
Government.--Ministerial Responsibility.--Elections in
France.--Doctrinaires.--Differences of Opinion.--Controversy.


LETTER XX.

Excursion with Lafayette.--Vincennes.--The Donjon.--Lagrange.--The
Towers.--Interior of the House--the General's Apartments.--the Cabinet.
--Lafayette's Title.--Church of the Chateau.--Ruins of Vivier.--Roman
Remains.--American Curiosity.--The Table at Lagrange.--Swindling.


LETTER XXI.

Insecurity of the Bourbons.--Distrust of Americans.--Literary Visitor.
--The Templars.--Presents and Invitations.--A Spy.--American Virtue.
--Inconsistency.--Social Freedom in America.--French Mannerists.
--National Distinctions.--A lively Reaction.


LETTER XXII.

Animal Magnetism.--Somnambules.--Magnetised Patients.--My own
Examination.--A Prediction.--Ventriloquism.--Force of the Imagination.


LETTER XXIII.

Preparations for Departure.--My Consulate.--Leave
Paris.--Picardy.--Cressy.--Montreuil.--Gate of Calais.--Port of
Calais.--Magical Words.




PREFACE.


It may seem to be late in the day to give an account of the more ordinary
characteristics of Europe. But the mass of all nations can form their
opinions of others through the medium of testimony only; and as no two
travellers see precisely the same things, or, when seen, view them with
precisely the same eyes, this is a species of writing, after all, that is
not likely to pall, or cease to be useful. The changes that are constantly
going on everywhere, call for as constant repetitions of the descriptions;
and although the pictures may not always be drawn and coloured equally
well, so long as they are taken in good faith, they will not be without
their value.

It is not a very difficult task to make what is commonly called an
amusing book of travels. Any one who will tell, with a reasonable degree
of graphic effect, what he has seen, will not fail to carry the reader
with him; for the interest we all feel in personal adventure is, of
itself, success. But it is much more difficult to give an honest and a
discriminating summary of what one has seen. The mind so naturally turns
to exceptions, that an observer has great need of self-distrust, of the
powers of analysis, and, most of all, of a knowledge of the world, to be
what the lawyers call a safe witness.

I have no excuse of haste, or of a want of time, to offer for the defect
of these volumes. All I ask is, that they may be viewed as no more than
they profess to be. They are the _gleanings of a harvest already
gathered_, thrown together in a desultory manner, and without the
slightest, or, at least, very small pretensions, to any of those
arithmetical and statistical accounts that properly belong to works of a
graver character. They contain the passing remarks of one who has
certainly seen something of the world, whether it has been to his
advantage or not, who had reasonably good opportunities to examine what
he saw, and who is not conscious of being, in the slightest degree,
influenced "by fear, favour, or the hope of reward." His _compte rendu_
must pass for what it is worth.




FRANCE.


LETTER I.

Our Embarkation.--Leave-taking.--Our Abigail.--Bay of New York.
--The Hudson.--Ominous Prediction.--The Prophet falsified.--Enter the
Atlantic.--"Land-birds."--Our Master.--Officers of Packet-ships.
--Loss of "The Crisis."--The "Three Chimneys."--Calamities at Sea.
--Sailing-match.--View of the Eddystone.--The Don Quixote.
--Comparative Sailing.--Pilot-boats.--Coast of Dorsetshire.--The Needles.
--Lymington.--Southampton Water.--The Custom-house.


TO CAPTAIN SHUBRICK, U.S.N.

MY DEAR SHUBRICK,

"Passengers by the Liverpool, London and Havre packets are informed that a
steam-boat will leave the White Hall Wharf precisely at eleven, A.M.
to-morrow, June 1st." If to this notice be added the year 1826, you have
the very hour and place of our embarkation. We were nominally of the
London party, it being our intention, however, to land at Cowes, from
which place we proposed crossing the Channel to Havre. The reason for
making this variation from the direct route, was the superior comfort of
the London ship; that of the French line for the 1st June, though a good
vessel and well commanded, being actually the least commodious packet that
plied between the two hemispheres.

We were punctual to the hour, and found one of the smaller steamers
crowded with those who, like ourselves, were bound to the "old world," and
the friends who had come to take the last look at them. We had our
leave-takings, too, which are sufficiently painful when it is known that
years must intervene before there is another meeting. As is always done by
good Manhattanese, the town house had been given up on the 1st of May,
since which time we had resided at an hotel. The furniture had been
principally sold at auction, and the entire month had passed in what I
believed to be very ample preparations. It may be questioned if there is
any such thing as being completely prepared for so material a change; at
all events, we found a dozen essentials neglected at the last moment, and
as many oversights to be repaired in the same instant.

On quitting the hotel, some fifty or a hundred volumes and pamphlets lay
on the floor of my bed-room. Luckily, you were to sail on a cruise in a
day or two, and as you promised not only to give them a berth, but to read
them one and all, they were transferred forthwith to the Lexington. They
were a dear gift, if you kept your word! John was sent with a note, with
orders to be at the wharf in half an hour. I have not seen him since. Then
Abigail was to be discharged. We had long debated whether this excellent
woman should, or should not, be taken. She was an American, and like most
of her countrywomen who will consent to serve in a household, a most
valuable domestic. She wished much to go, but, on the other side, was the
conviction, that a woman who had never been at sea would be useless during
the passage; and then we were told so many fine things of the European
servants, that the odds were unfortunately against her. The principal
objection, however, was her forms of speech. Foreign servants would of
themselves be a great aid in acquiring the different languages; and poor
Abigail, at the best, spoke that least desirable of all corruptions of the
English tongue, the country dialect of New England. Her New England morals
and New England sense; in this instance, were put in the balance against
her "bens," "_an_-gels," "doozes," "nawthings," "noans," and even her
"virtooes," (in a family of children, no immaterial considerations,) and
the latter prevailed. We had occasion to regret this decision. A few years
later I met in Florence an Italian family of high rank, which had brought
with them from Philadelphia two female domestics, whom they prized above
all the other servants of a large establishment. Italy was not good enough
for them, however; and, after resisting a great deal of persuasion, they
were sent back. What was Florence or Rome to Philadelphia! But then these
people spoke good English--better, perhaps, than common English
nursery-maids, the greatest of their abuses in orthoepy being merely to
teach a child to call its mother a "mare."

It was a flat calm, and the packets were all dropping down the bay with
the ebb. The day was lovely, and the view of the harbour, which _has_ so
many, while it _wants_ so many, of the elements of first-rate scenery, was
rarely finer. All estuaries are most beautiful viewed in the calm; but
this is peculiarly true of the Bay of New York--neither the colour of the
water, nor its depth, nor the height of the surrounding land, being
favourable to the grander efforts of Nature. There is little that is
sublime in either the Hudson, or its mouth; but there is the very extreme
of landscape beauty.

Experience will teach every one, that without returning to scenes that
have made early impressions, after long absences, and many occasions to
examine similar objects elsewhere, our means of comparison are of no
great value. My acquaintance with the Hudson has been long and very
intimate; for to say that I have gone up and down its waters a hundred
times, would be literally much within the truth. During that journey
whose observations and events are about to fill these volumes, I
retained a lively impression of its scenery, and, on returning to the
country, its current was ascended with a little apprehension that an eye
which had got to be practised in the lights and shades of the Alps and
Appenines might prove too fastidious for our own river. What is usually
termed the grandeur of the highlands was certainly much impaired; but
other parts of the scenery gained in proportion; and, on the whole, I
found the passage between New York and Albany to be even finer than it
had been painted by memory. I should think there can be little doubt
that, if not positively the most beautiful river, the Hudson possesses
some of the most beautiful river-scenery, of the known world.

Our ship was named after this noble stream. We got on board of her off
Bedlow's, and dropped quietly down as far as the quarantine ground before
we were met by the flood. Here we came to, to wait for a wind, more
passengers, and that important personage, whom man-of-war's men term the
master, and landsmen the captain. In the course of the afternoon we had
all assembled, and began to reconnoitre each other, and to attend to our
comforts.

To get accustomed to the smell of the ship, with its confined air, and
especially to get all their little comforts about them in smooth water, is
a good beginning for your novices. If to this be added moderation in food,
and especially in drink; as much exercise as one can obtain; refraining
from reading and writing until accustomed to one's situation, and paying
great attention to the use of aperients; I believe all is said that an old
traveller, and an old sailor too, can communicate on a subject so
important to those who are unaccustomed to the sea. Can your experience
suggest anything more?

We lay that night at the quarantine ground; but early on the morning of
the 2nd, all hands were called to heave-up. The wind came in puffs over
the heights of Staten, and there was every prospect of our being able to
get to sea in two or three hours. We hove short, and sheeted home, and
hoisted the three topsails; but the anchor hung, and the people were
ordered to get their breakfasts, leaving the ship to tug at her
ground-tackle with a view to loosen her hold of the bottom.

Everything was now in motion. The little Don Quixote, the Havre ship just
mentioned, was laying through the narrows, with a fresh breeze from the
south-west. The Liverpool ship was out of sight, and six or seven sails
were turning down with the ebb, under every stitch of canvass that would
draw. One fine vessel tacked directly on our quarter. As she passed quite
near our stern, some one cried from her deck:--"A good run to you,
Mr. ----." After thanking this well-wisher, I inquired his name. He gave me
that of an Englishman, who resided in Cuba, whither he was bound. "How
long do you mean to be absent?" "Five years." "You will never come back."
With this raven-like prediction we parted; the wind sweeping his vessel
beyond the reach of the voice.

These words, "You will never come back!" were literally the last that I
heard on quitting my country. They were uttered in a prophetic tone, and
under circumstances that were of a nature to produce an impression. I
thought of them often, when standing on the western verge of Europe, and
following the course of the sun toward the land in which I was born; I
remembered them from the peaks of the Alps, when the subtle mind,
outstripping the senses, would make its mysterious flight westward across
seas and oceans, to recur to the past, and to conjecture the future; and
when the allotted five years were up, and found us still wanderers, I
really began to think, what probably every man thinks, in some moment of
weakness, that this call from the passing ship was meant to prepare me for
the future. The result proved in my case, however, as it has probably
proved in those of most men, that Providence did not consider me of
sufficient importance to give me audible information of what was about to
happen. So strong was this impression to the last, notwithstanding, that
on our return, when the vessel passed the spot where the evil-omened
prediction was uttered, I caught myself muttering involuntarily, "---- is
a false prophet; I _have_ come back!"

We got our anchor as soon as the people were ready, and, the wind drawing
fresh through the narrows, were not long turning into lower bay. The ship
was deep, and had not a sufficient spread of canvass for a summer passage,
but she was well commanded, and exceedingly comfortable.

The wind became light in the lower bay. The Liverpool ship had got to sea
the evening before, and the Don Quixote was passing the Hook, just as we
opened the mouth of the Raritan. A light English bark was making a fair
wind of it, by laying out across the swash; and it now became questionable
whether the ebb would last long enough to sweep us round the south-west
spit, a _détour_ that our heavier draught rendered necessary.

By paying great attention to the ship, however, the pilot, who was of the
dilatory school, succeeded about 3 P.M. in getting us round that awkward
but very necessary buoy, which makes so many foul winds of fair ones, when
the ship's bead was laid to the eastward, with square yards. In half an
hour the vessel had "slapped" past the low sandy spit of land that you
have so often regarded with philosophical eyes, and we fairly entered the
Atlantic, at a point where nothing but water lay between us and the Rock
of Lisbon. We discharged the pilot on the bar.

By this time the wind had entirely left us, the flood was making strong,
and there was a prospect of our being compelled to anchor. The bark was
nearly hull-down in the offing, and the top-gallant-sails of the Don
Quixote were just settling into the water. All this was very provoking,
for there might be a good breeze to seaward, while we had it calm inshore.
The suspense was short, for a fresh-looking line along the sea to the
southward gave notice of the approach of wind; the yards were braced
forward, and in half an hour we were standing east southerly, with strong
headway. About sunset we passed the light vessel which then lay moored
several leagues from land, in the open ocean,--an experiment that has
since failed. The highlands of Navesink disappeared with the day.

The other passengers were driven below before evening. The first mate, a
straight-forward Kennebunk man, gave me a wink, (he had detected my
sea-education by a single expression, that of "send it an end," while
mounting the side of the ship,) and said, "A clear quarter-deck! a good
time to take a walk, sir." I had it all to myself, sure enough, for the
first two or three days, after which our land-birds came crawling up, one
by one; but long before the end of the passage nothing short of a
double-reefed-topsail breeze could send the greater part of them below.
There was one man, however, who, the mate affirmed wore the heel of a
spare topmast smooth, by seating himself on it, as the precise spot where
the motion of the ship excited the least nausea. I got into my berth at
nine; but hearing a movement overhead about midnight, I turned out again,
with a sense of uneasiness I had rarely before experienced at sea. The
responsibility of a large family acted, in some measure, like the
responsibility of command. The captain was at his post, shortening sail,
for it blew fresher: there was some rain; and thunder and lightning were
at work in the heavens in the direction of the adjacent continent: the air
was full of wild, unnatural lucidity, as if the frequent flashes left a
sort of twilight behind them; and objects were discernible at a distance
of two or three leagues. We had been busy in the first watch, as the omens
denoted easterly weather; the English bark was struggling along the
troubled waters, already quite a league on our lee quarter.

I remained on deck half an hour, watching the movements of the master. He
was a mild, reasoning Connecticut man, whose manner of ministering to the
wants of the female passengers had given me already a good opinion of his
kindness and forethought, while it left some doubts of his ability to
manage the rude elements of drunkenness and insubordination which existed
among the crew, quite one half of whom were Europeans. He was now on deck
in a southwester,[1] giving his orders in a way effectually to shake all
that was left of the "horrors" out of the ship's company. I went below,
satisfied that we were in good hands; and before the end of the passage, I
was at a loss to say whether Nature had most fitted this truly worthy man
to be a ship-master or a child's nurse, for he really appeared to me to be
equally skilful in both capacities.

[Footnote 1: Doric--_south_-wester.]

Such a temperament is admirably suited to the command of a packet--a
station in which so many different dispositions, habits and prejudices are
to be soothed, at the same time that a proper regard is to be had to the
safety of their persons. If any proof is wanting that the characters of
seamen in general have been formed under adverse circumstances, and
without sufficient attention, or, indeed, any attention to their real
interests, it is afforded in the fact, that the officers of the
packet-ships, men usually trained like other mariners, so easily adapt
their habits to their new situation, and become more mild, reflecting and
humane. It is very rare to hear a complaint against an officer of one of
these vessels; yet it is not easy to appreciate the embarrassments they
have frequently to encounter from whimsical, irritable, ignorant, and
exacting passengers. As a rule, the eastern men of this country make the
best packet-officers. They are less accustomed to sail with foreigners
than those who have been trained in the other ports, but acquire habits of
thought and justice by commanding their countrymen; for, of all the seamen
of the known world, I take it the most subordinate, the least troublesome,
and the easiest to govern, so long as he is not oppressed is the native
American. This, indeed, is true, both ashore and afloat, for very obvious
reasons: they who are accustomed to reason themselves, being the most
likely to submit to reasonable regulations; and they who are habituated to
plenty, are the least likely to be injured by prosperity, which causes
quite as much trouble in this world as adversity. It is this prosperity,
too suddenly acquired, which spoils most of the labouring Europeans who
emigrate; while they seldom acquire the real, frank independence of
feeling which characterizes the natives. They adopt an insolent and rude
manner as its substitute, mistaking the shadow for the substance. This
opinion of the American seamen is precisely the converse of what is
generally believed in Europe, however, and more particularly in England;
for, following out the one-sided political theories in which they have
been nurtured, disorganization, in the minds of the inhabitants of the old
world, is inseparable from popular institutions.

The early part of the season of 1826 was remarkable for the quantities of
ice that had drifted from the north into the track of European and
American ships. The Crisis, a London packet, had been missing nearly three
months when we sailed. She was known to have been full of passengers, and
the worst fears were felt for her safety; ten years have since elapsed,
and no vestige of this unhappy ship has ever been found!

Our master prudently decided that safety was of much more importance than
speed, and he kept the Hudson well to the southward. Instead of crossing
the banks, we were as low as 40°, when in their meridian; and although we
had some of the usual signs, in distant piles of fog, and exceedingly
chilly and disagreeable weather, for a day or two, we saw no ice. About
the 15th, the wind got round to the southward and eastward, and we began
to fall off, more than we wished even, to the northward.

All the charts for the last fifty years have three rocks laid down to the
westward of Ireland, which are known as the "Three Chimneys." Most
American mariners have little faith in their existence, and yet, I fancy,
no seaman draws near the spot where they are said to be, without keeping a
good look-out for the danger. The master of the Hudson once carried a
lieutenant of the English navy, as a passenger, who assured him that he
had actually seen these "Three Chimneys." He may have been mistaken, and
he may not. Our course lay far to the southward of them; but the wind
gradually hauled ahead, in such a way as to bring us as near as might be
to the very spot where they ought to appear, if properly laid down. The
look-outs of a merchant-ship are of no great value, except in serious
cases, and I passed nearly a whole night on deck, quite as much incited by
my precious charge, as by curiosity, in order to ascertain all that eyes
could ascertain under the circumstances. No signs of these rocks, however,
were seen from the Hudson.

It is surprising in the present state of commerce, and with the vast
interests which are at stake, that any facts affecting the ordinary
navigation between the two hemispheres should be left in doubt. There is
a shoal, and I believe a reef, laid down near the tail of the great
bank, whose existence is still uncertain. Seamen respect this danger
more than that of the "Three Chimneys," for it lies very much in the
track of ships between Liverpool and New York; still, while tacking, or
giving it a berth, they do not know whether they are not losing a wind
for a groundless apprehension! Our own government would do well to
employ a light cruiser, or two, in ascertaining just these facts (many
more might he added to the list), during the summer months. Our own
brief naval history is pregnant with instances of the calamities that
befall ships. No man can say when, or how, the Insurgente, the
Pickering, the Wasp, the Epervier, the Lynx, and the Hornet disappeared.
We know that they are gone; and of all the brave spirits they held, not
one has been left to relate the histories of the different disasters. We
have some plausible conjectures concerning the manner in which the two
latter were wrecked; but an impenetrable mystery conceals the fate of
the four others. They may have run on unknown reefs. These reefs may be
constantly heaving up from the depths of the ocean, by subterranean
efforts; for a marine rock is merely the summit of a submarine
mountain.[2]

[Footnote 2: There is a touching incident connected with the fortunes of
two young officers of the navy, that is not generally known. When the
Essex frigate was captured in the Pacific, by the Phoebe and Cherub, two
of the officers of the former were left in the ship, in order to make
certain affidavits that were necessary to the condemnation. The remainder
were paroled and returned to America. After a considerable interval, some
uneasiness was felt at the protracted absence of those who had been left
in the Essex. On inquiry it was found, that, after accompanying the ship
to Rio Janeiro, they had been exchanged, according to agreement, and
suffered to go where they pleased. After some delay, they took passage in
a Swedish brig bound to Norway, as the only means which offered to get to
Europe, whence they intended to return home. About this time great
interest was also felt for the sloop Wasp. She had sailed for the mouth of
the British Channel, where she fell in with and took the Reindeer,
carrying her prisoners into France. Shortly after she had an action with
and took the Avon, but was compelled to abandon her prize by others of the
enemy's cruisers, one of which (the Castilian) actually came up with her
and gave her a broad-side. About twenty days after the latter action she
took a merchant-brig, near the Western Islands, and sent her into
Philadelphia. This was the last that had been heard of her. Months and
even years went by, and no farther intelligence was obtained. All this
time, too, the gentlemen of the Essex were missing. Government ordered
inquiries to be made in Sweden for the master of the brig in which they
had embarked; he was absent on a long voyage, and a weary period elapsed
before he could be found. When this did happen, he was required to give an
account of his passengers. By producing his logbook and proper receipts,
he proved that he had fallen in with the Wasp, near the line, about a
fortnight after she had taken the merchant-brig named, when the young
officers in question availed themselves of the occasion to return to their
flag. Since that time, a period of twenty-one years, the Wasp has not been
heard of.]

We were eighteen days out, when, early one morning, we made an American
ship, on our weather quarter. Both vessels had everything set that would
draw, and were going about five knots, close on the wind. The stranger
made a signal to speak us, and, on the Hudson's main-topsail being laid to
the mast, he came down under our stern, and ranged up alongside to
leeward. He proved to be a ship called the "London Packet," from
Charlestown, bound to Havre, and his chronometer having stopped, he wanted
to get the longitude.

When we had given him our meridian, a trial of sailing commenced, which
continued without intermission for three entire days. During this time, we
had the wind from all quarters, and of every degree of force, from the
lightest air to a double-reefed-topsail breeze. We were never a mile
separated, and frequently we were for hours within a cable's length of
each other. One night the two ships nearly got foul, in a very light air.
The result showed, that they sailed as nearly alike, one being deep and
the other light, as might well happen to two vessels. On the third day,
both ships being under reefed topsails, with the wind at east, and in
thick weather, after holding her own with us for two watches, the London
Packet edged a little off the wind, while the Hudson still hugged it, and
we soon lost sight of our consort in the mist.

We were ten days longer struggling with adverse winds. During this time
the ship made all possible traverses, our vigilant master resorting to
every expedient of an experienced seaman to get to the eastward. We were
driven up as high as fifty-four, where we fell into the track of the St.
Lawrence traders. The sea seemed covered with them, and I believe we made
more than a hundred, most of which were brigs. All these we passed without
difficulty. At length a stiff breeze came from the south-west, and we laid
our course for the mouth of the British Channel under studding-sails.

On the 28th we got bottom in about sixty fathoms water. The 29th was thick
weather, with a very light, but a fair wind; we were now quite sensibly
within the influence of the tides. Towards evening the horizon brightened
a little, and we made the Bill of Portland, resembling a faint bluish
cloud. It was soon obscured, and most of the landsmen were incredulous
about its having been seen at all. In the course of the night, however, we
got a good view of the Eddystone.

Going on deck early on the morning of the 30th, a glorious view
presented itself. The day was fine, clear, and exhilarating, and the
wind was blowing fresh from the westward. Ninety-seven sail, which had
come into the Channel, like ourselves, during the thick weather, were in
plain sight. The majority were English, but we recognized the build of
half the maritime nations of Christendom in the brilliant fleet.
Everybody was busy, and the blue waters were glittering with canvass. A
frigate was in the midst of us, walking through the crowd like a giant
stepping among pigmies. Our own good vessel left everything behind her
also, with the exception of two or three other bright-sided ships, which
happened to be as fast as herself.

I found the master busy with the glass; and, as soon as he caught my
eye, he made a sign for me to come forward. "Look at that ship directly
ahead of us!" The vessel alluded to led the fleet, being nearly
hull-down to the eastward. It was the Don Quixote, which had left the
port of New York one month before, about the same distance in our
advance. "Now look here, inshore of us," added the master: "it is an
American; but I cannot make her out." "Look again: she has a new cloth
in her main-top-gallant sail." This was true enough, and by that sign,
the vessel was our late competitor, the London Packet!

As respects the Don Quixote, we had made a journey of some five thousand
miles, and not varied our distance, on arriving, a league. There was
probably some accident in this; for the Don Quixote had the reputation of
a fast ship, while the Hudson was merely a pretty fair sailer. We had
probably got the best of the winds. But a hard and close trial of three
days had shown that neither the Hudson nor the London Packet, in their
present trims, could go ahead of the other in any wind. And yet here,
after a separation of ten days, during which time our ship had tacked and
wore fifty times, had calms, foul winds and fair, and had run fully a
thousand miles, there was not a league's difference between the two
vessels!

I have related these circumstances, because I think they are connected
with causes that have a great influence on the success of American
navigation. On passing several of the British ships to-day, I observed
that their officers were below, or at least out of sight; and in one
instance, a vessel of a very fair mould, and with every appearance of a
good sailer, actually lay with some of her light sails aback, long enough
to permit us to come up with and pass her. The Hudson probably went with
this wind some fifteen or twenty miles farther than this loiterer; while I
much question if she could have gone as far, had the latter been well
attended to. The secret is to be found in the fact, that so large a
portion of American ship-masters are also ship-owners, as to have erected
a standard of activity and vigilance, below which few are permitted to
fall. These men work for themselves, and, like all their countrymen, are
looking out for something more than a mere support.

About noon we got a Cowes pilot. He brought no news, but told us the
English vessel I have just named was sixty days from Leghorn, and that she
had been once a privateer. We were just thirty from New York.

We had distant glimpses of the land all day, and several of the passengers
determined to make their way to the shore in the pilot-boat. These Channel
craft are sloops of about thirty or forty tons, and are rather picturesque
and pretty boats, more especially when under low sail. They are usually
fitted to take passengers, frequently earning more in this way than by
their pilotage. They have the long sliding bowsprit, a short lower mast,
very long cross-trees, with a taunt topmast, and, though not so "wicked"
to the eye, I think them prettier objects at sea than our own schooners.
The party from the Hudson had scarcely got on board their new vessel when
it fell calm, and the master and myself paid them a visit. They looked
like a set of smugglers waiting for the darkness to run in. On our return
we rowed round the ship. One cannot approach a vessel at sea, in this
manner, without being struck with the boldness of the experiment which
launched such massive and complicated fabrics on the ocean. The pure water
is a medium almost as transparent as the atmosphere, and the very keel is
seen, usually so near the surface, in consequence of refraction, as to
give us but a very indifferent opinion of the security of the whole
machine. I do not remember ever looking at my own vessel, when at sea,
from a boat, without wondering at my own folly in seeking such a home.

In the afternoon the breeze sprang up again, and we soon lost sight of our
friends, who were hauling in for the still distant land. All that
afternoon and night we had a fresh and a favourable wind. The next day I
went on deck, while the people were washing the ship. It was Sunday, and
there was a flat calm. The entire scene admirably suited a day of rest.
The Channel was like a mirror, unruffled by a breath of air, and some
twenty or thirty vessels lay scattered about the view, with their sails
festooned and drooping, thrown into as many picturesque positions by the
eddying waters. Our own ship had got close in with the land; so near,
indeed, as to render a horse or a man on the shore distinctly visible. We
were on the coast of Dorsetshire. A range of low cliffs lay directly abeam
of us, and, as the land rose to a ridge behind them, we had a distinct
view of a fair expanse of nearly houseless fields. We had left America
verdant and smiling, but we found England brown and parched, there having
been a long continuance of dry easterly winds.

The cliffs terminated suddenly, a little way ahead of the ship, and the
land retired inward, with a wide sweep, forming a large, though not a very
deep bay, that was bounded by rather low shores. It was under these very
cliffs, on which we were looking with so much pleasure and security, and
at so short a distance, that the well-known and terrible wreck of an
Indiaman occurred, when the master, with his two daughters, and hundreds
of other lives, were lost. The pilot pointed out the precise spot where
that ill-fated vessel went to pieces. But the sea in its anger, and the
sea at rest, are very different powers. The place had no terrors for us.

Ahead of us, near twenty miles distant, lay a high hazy bluff, that was
just visible. This was the western extremity of the Isle of Wight, and the
end of our passage in the Hudson. A sloop of war was pointing her head in
towards this bluff, and all the vessels in sight now began to take new
forms, varying and increasing the picturesque character of the view. We
soon got a light air ourselves, and succeeded in laying the ship's head
off shore, towards which we had been gradually drifting nearer than was
desirable. The wind came fresh and fair about ten, when we directed our
course towards the distant bluff. Everything was again in motion. The
cliffs behind us gradually sunk, as those before us rose, and lost their
indistinctness; the blue of the latter soon became grey, and, ere long,
white as chalk, this being the material of which they are, in truth,
composed.

We saw a small whale (it might have been a large grampus) floundering
ahead of us, and acting as an extra pilot, for he appeared to be steering,
like ourselves, for the Needles. These Needles are fragments of the chalk
cliffs, that have been pointed and rendered picturesque by the action of
the weather, and our course lay directly past them. They form a line from
the extremity of the Isle of Wight, and are awkwardly placed for vessels
that come this way in thick weather, or in the dark. The sloop of war got
round them first, and we were not far behind her. When fairly within the
Needles the ship was embayed, our course now lying between Hampshire and
the Isle of Wight, through a channel of no great width. The country was
not particularly beautiful, and still looked parched; though we got a
distant view of one pretty town, Lymington, in Hampshire. This place, in
the distance, appeared not unlike a large New England village, though
there was less glare to the houses. The cliffs, however, were very fine,
without being of any extraordinary elevation. Though much inferior to the
shores of the Mediterranean, they as much surpass anything I remember to
have seen on our own coast, between Cape Anne and Cape Florida; which, for
its extent, a part of India, perhaps, excepted, is, I take it, just the
flattest, and tamest, and least interesting coast in the entire world.

The master pointed out a mass of dark herbage on a distant height, which
resembled a copse of wood that had been studiously clipped into square
forms at its different angles. It was visible only for a few moments,
through a vista in the hills. This was Carisbrooke Castle, buried in ivy.

There was another little castle, on a low point of land, which was erected
by Henry VIII. as a part of a system of marine defence. It would scarcely
serve to scale the guns of a modern twenty-four-pounder frigate, judging
of its means of resistance and annoyance by the eye. These things are
by-gones for England, a country that has little need of marine batteries.

About three, we reached a broad basin, the land retiring on each side of
us. The estuary to the northward is called Southampton Water, the town of
that name being seated on its margin. The opening in the Isle of Wight is
little more than a very wide mouth to a very diminutive river or creek,
and Cowes, divided into East and West, lines its shores. The anchorage in
the arm of the sea off this little haven was well filled with vessels,
chiefly the yachts of amateur seamen, and the port itself contained little
more than pilot-boats and crafts of a smaller size. The Hudson brought up
among the former. Hauling up the forecourse of a merchant-ship is like
lifting the curtain again on the drama of the land. These vessels rarely
furl this sail; and they who have not experienced it, cannot imagine what
a change it produces on those who have lived a month or six weeks beneath
its shadow. The sound of the chain running out was very grateful, and I
believe, though well satisfied with the ship as such, that everybody was
glad to get a nearer view of our great mother earth.

It was Sunday, but we were soon visited by boats from the town. Some came
to carry us ashore, others to see that we carried nothing off with us. At
first, the officer of the customs manifested a desire to make us all go
without the smallest article of dress, or anything belonging to our most
ordinary comforts; but he listened to remonstrances, and we were
eventually allowed to depart with our night-bags. As the Hudson was to
sail immediately for London, all our effects were sent within the hour to
the custom-house. At 3 P.M. July 2nd, 1826, we put foot in Europe, after a
passage of thirty-one days from the quarantine ground.




LETTER II.

Controversy at Cowes.--Custom-house Civility.--English Costume.--Fashion
in America.--Quadrilles in New York.--Cowes.--Nautical Gallantry.
English Beauty.--Isle of Wight Butter.--English Scenery.--M'Adamized
Roads.--Old Village Church.--Rural Interment.--Pauper's
Grave.--Carisbrooke Cattle.--Southampton.--Waiter at the Vine.--English
Costume.--Affinity with England.--Netley Abbey.--Southampton Cockneys.


TO MRS. POMEROY, COOPERSTOWN, NEW YORK.

We were no sooner on English ground, than we hurried to one of the two or
three small inns of West Cowes, or the principal quarter of the place, and
got rooms at the Fountain. Mr. and Mrs. ---- had preceded us, and were
already in possession of a parlour adjoining our own. On casting an eye
out at the street, I found them, one at each window of their own room,
already engaged in a lively discussion of the comparative merits of Cowes
and Philadelphia! This propensity to exaggerate the value of whatever is
our own, and to depreciate that which is our neighbour's, a principle that
is connected with the very ground-work of poor human nature, forms a
material portion of travelling equipage of nearly every one who quits the
scenes of his own youth, to visit those of other people. A comparison
between Cowes and Philadelphia is even more absurd than a comparison
between New York and London, and yet, in this instance, it answered the
purpose of raising a lively controversy between an American wife and a
European husband.

The consul at Cowes had been an old acquaintance at school some
five-and-twenty years before, and an inquiry was set on foot for his
residence. He was absent in France, but his deputy soon presented himself
with an offer of services. We wished for our trunks, and it was soon
arranged that there should be an immediate examination. Within an hour we
were summoned to the store-house, where an officer attended on behalf of
the customs. Everything was done in a very expeditious and civil manner,
not only for us, but for a few steerage passengers, and this, too, without
the least necessity for a _douceur_, the usual _passe-partout_ of England.
America sends no manufactures to Europe; and, a little smuggling in
tobacco excepted, there is probably less of the contraband in our
commercial connexion with England, than ever before occurred between two
nations that have so large a trade. This, however, is only in reference to
what goes eastward, for immense amounts of the smaller manufactured
articles of all Europe find their way, duty free, into the United States.
There is also a regular system of smuggling through the Canadas, I have
been told.

While the ladies were enjoying the negative luxury of being liberated from
a ship, at the Fountain Inn, I strolled about the place. You know that I
had twice visited England professionally before I was eighteen; and, on
one occasion, the ship I was in anchored off this very island, though not
at this precise spot. I now thought the people altered. There had
certainly been so many important changes in myself during the same period,
that it becomes me to speak with hesitation on this point: but even the
common class seemed less peculiar, less English, _less provincial_, if one
might use such an expression, as applied to so great a nation; in short,
more like the rest of the world than formerly. Twenty years before,
England was engaged in a war, by which she was, in a degree, isolated from
most of Christendom. This insulated condition, sustained by a
consciousness of wealth, knowledge, and power, had served to produce a
decided peculiarity of manners, and even of appearance. In the article of
dress I could not be mistaken. In 1806 I had seen all the lower classes of
the English clad in something like _costumes_. The Channel waterman wore
the short dowlas petticoat; the Thames waterman, a jacket and breeches of
velveteen, and a badge; the gentleman and gentlewoman, attire such as was
certainly to be seen in no other part of the Christian world, the English
colonies excepted. Something of this still remained, but it existed rather
as the exception than as the rule. I then felt, at every turn, that I was
in a foreign country; whereas, now, the idea did not obtrude itself,
unless I was brought in immediate contact with the people.

America, in my time, at least, has always had an active and swift
communication with the rest of the world. As a people, we are, beyond a
question, decidedly provincial; but our provincialism is not exactly one
of external appearance. The men are negligent of dress, for they are much
occupied, have few servants, and clothes are expensive; but the women
dress remarkably near the Parisian _modes_. We have not sufficient
confidence in ourselves to set fashions. All our departures from the
usages of the rest of mankind are results of circumstances, and not of
calculation,--unless, indeed, it be one that is pecuniary. Those whose
interest it is to produce changes cause fashions to travel fast, and there
is not so much difficulty, or more cost, in transporting anything from
Havre to New York, than there is in transporting the same thing from
Calais to London; and far less difficulty in causing a new _mode_ to be
introduced, since, as a young people, we are essentially imitative. An
example or two will better illustrate what I mean.

When I visited London, with a part of my family, in 1823, after passing
near two years on the continent of Europe, Mrs. ---- was compelled to
change her dress--at all times simple, but then, as a matter of course,
Parisian--in order not to be the subject of unpleasant observation. She
might have gone in a carriage attired as a Frenchwoman, for they who ride
in England are not much like those who walk; but to walk in the streets,
and look at objects, it was far pleasanter to seem English than to seem
French. Five years later, we took London on our way to America, and even
then something of the same necessity was felt. On reaching home, with
dresses fresh from Paris, the same party was only in the _mode_; with
_toilettes_ a little, and but very little, better arranged, it is true,
but in surprising conformity with those of all around them. On visiting
our own little retired mountain village, these Parisian-made dresses were
scarcely the subject of remark to any but to your _connoisseurs_. My
family struck me as being much less peculiar in the streets of C---- than
they had been, a few months before, in the streets of London. All this
must be explained by the activity of the intercourse between France and
America, and by the greater facility of the Americans in submitting to the
despotism of foreign fashions.

Another fact will show you another side of the subject. While at Paris, a
book of travels in America, written by an Englishman (Mr. Vigne), fell
into my hands. The writer, apparently a well-disposed and sensible man,
states that he was dancing _dos-à-dos_ in a _quadrille_, at New York, when
he found, by the embarrassment of the rest of the set, he had done
something wrong. Some one kindly told him that they no longer danced
_dos-à-dos_. In commenting on this trifling circumstance, the writer
ascribes the whole affair to the false delicacy of our women! Unable to
see the connexion between the cause and the effect, I pointed out the
paragraph to one of my family, who was then in the daily practice of
dancing, and that too in Paris itself, the very court of Terpsichore. She
laughed, and told me that the practice of dancing _dos-à-dos had gone out
at Paris a year or two before_, and that doubtless the newer _mode_ had
reached New York before it reached Mr. Vigne! These are trifles, but they
are the trifles that make up the sum of national peculiarities, ignorance
of which leads us into a thousand fruitless and absurd conjectures. In
this little anecdote we learn the great rapidity with which new fashions
penetrate American usages, and the greater ductility of American society
in visible and tangible things, at least; and the heedless manner with
which even those who write in a good spirit of America, jump to their
conclusions. Had Captain Hall, or Mrs. Trollope, encountered this unlucky
_quadrille_, they would probably have found some clever means of imputing
the _nez-à-nez_ tendencies of our dances to the spirit of democracy! The
latter, for instance, is greatly outraged by the practice of wearing hats
in Congress, and of placing the legs on tables; and, yet, both have been
practised in Parliament from time immemorial! She had never seen her own
Legislature, and having a set of theories cut and dried for Congress,
everything that struck her as novel was referred to one of her
preconceived notions. In this manner are books manufactured, and by such
means are nations made acquainted with each other!

Cowes resembles a toy-town. The houses are tiny; the streets, in the
main, are narrow, and not particularly straight, while everything is
neat as wax. Some new avenues, however, are well planned, and, long ere
this, are probably occupied; and there were several small marine villas
in or near the place. One was shown me that belonged to the Duke of
Norfolk. It had the outward appearance of a medium-sized American
country-house. The bluff King Hal caused another castle to be built
here also, which, I understood, was inhabited at the time by the family
of the Marquis of Anglesey, who was said to be its governor. A part of
the system of the English government patronage is connected with these
useless castles and nominally fortified places. Salaries are attached to
the governments, and the situations are usually bestowed on military
men. This is a good or a bad regulation, as the patronage is used. In a
nation of extensive military operations it might prove a commendable and
a delicate way of rewarding services; but, as the tendency of mankind is
to defer to intrigue, and to augment power rather than to reward merit,
the probability is, that these places are rarely bestowed, except in the
way of political _quids pro quos_.

I was, with one striking exception, greatly disappointed in the general
appearance of the females that I met in the streets. While strolling in
the skirts of the town, I came across a group of girls and boys, in which
a laughable scene of nautical gallantry was going on. The boys, lads of
fourteen or fifteen, were young sailors, and among the girls, who were of
the same age and class, was one of bewitching beauty. There had been some
very palpable passages of coquetry between the two parties, when one of
the young sailors, a tight lad of thirteen or fourteen, rushed into the
bevy of petticoats, and, borne away by an ecstasy of admiration, but
certainly guided by an excellent taste, he seized the young Venus round
the neck, and dealt out some as hearty smacks as I remember to have heard.
The working of emotion in the face of the girl was a perfect study.
Confusion and shame came first; indignation followed; and, darting out
from among her companions, she dealt her robust young admirer such a
slap in the face, that it sounded like the report of a pocket-pistol.
The blow was well meant, and admirably administered. It left the mark of
every finger on the cheek of the sturdy little fellow. The lad clenched
his fist, seemed much disposed to retort in kind, and ended by telling
his beautiful antagonist that it was very fortunate for her she was not
a boy. But it was the face of the girl herself that drew my attention.
It was like a mirror which reflected every passing thought. When she
gave the blow, it was red with indignation. This feeling instantly gave
way to a kinder sentiment, and her colour softened to a flush of
surprise at the boldness of her own act. Then came a laugh, and a look
about her, as if to inquire if she had been very wrong; the whole
terminating in an expression of regret in the prettiest blue eyes in the
world, which might have satisfied any one that an offence occasioned by
her own sweet face was not unpardonable. The sweetness, the
ingenuousness, the spirit mingled with softness, exhibited in the
countenance of this girl, are, I think, all characteristic of the
English female countenance, when it has not been marble-ized by the
over-wrought polish of high breeding. Similar countenances occur in
America, though, I think, less frequently than here; and I believe them
to be quite peculiar to the Anglo-Saxon race. The workings of such a
countenance are like the play of lights and shades in a southern sky.

From the windows of the inn we had a very good view of a small
castellated dwelling that one of the King's architects had caused to be
erected for himself. The effect of gray towers seen over the tree-tops,
with glimpses of the lawn, visible through vistas in the copses, was
exceedingly pretty; though the indescribable influence of association
prevented us from paying that homage to turrets and walls of the
nineteenth, that we were ready so devotedly to pay to anything of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

We broke bread, for the first time in Europe, that evening, having made
an early and a hurried dinner on board the ship. The Isle of Wight is
celebrated for its butter, and yet we found it difficult to eat it! The
English, and many other European nations, put no salt in their table
butter; and we, who had been accustomed to the American usage, exclaimed
with one voice against its insipidity. A near relation of A----'s who
once served in the British army, used to relate an anecdote on the
subject of tastes, that is quite in point. A brother officer, who had
gone safely through the celebrated siege of Gibraltar, landed at
Portsmouth, on his return home. Among the other privations of his recent
service, he had been compelled to eat butter whose fragrance scented the
whole Rock. Before retiring for the night, he gave particular orders to
have hot rolls and Isle of Wight butter served for breakfast. The first
mouthful disappointed him, and of course the unlucky waiter suffered.
The latter protested that he had executed the order to the letter. "Then
take away your Isle of Wight butter," growled the officer, "and bring me
some that _has a taste_."

Like him of Gibraltar, we were ready to exclaim, "Take away your Isle of
Wight butter, and bring us some from the good ship Hudson," which, though
not quite as fragrant as that which had obtained its odour in a siege, was
not entirely without a taste. This little event, homely as it may appear,
is connected with the principle that influences the decisions of more than
half of those who visit foreign nations. Usages are condemned because they
are not our own; practices are denounced if their connexion with fitness
is not self-apparent to our inexperience; and men and things are judged by
rules that are of local origin and local application. The moral will be
complete when I add, that we, who were so fastidious about the butter at
Cowes, after an absence of nearly eight years from America, had the salt
regularly worked out of all we ate, for months after our return home,
protesting there was no such thing as good butter in America. Had Mrs. ----
introduced the Philadelphia butter, however, I think her husband must have
succumbed, for I believe it to be the best in the world, not even
excepting that of Leyden.

Towards evening, the Hudson having landed all her passengers, and the most
of those who were in the steerage, went round the eastern point of the
little port, on her way to London.

After taking an early breakfast, we all got into a carriage called a
sociable, which is very like a larger sort of American coaches and went to
Newport, the principal town in the island. The road ran between hedges,
and the scenery was strictly English. Small enclosures, copses, a sward
clipped close as velvet, and trees (of no great size or beauty, however,)
scattered in the fields, with an effect nearly equal to landscape
gardening, were the predominant features. The drought had less influence
on the verdure here than in Dorsetshire. The road was narrow and winding,
the very _beau idéal_ of a highway; for, in this particular, the general
rule obtains that what is agreeable is the least useful. Thanks to the
practical good sense and perseverance of Mr. McAdam, not only the road in
question, but nearly all the roads of Great Britain have been made, within
the last five-and-twenty years, to resemble in appearance, but really to
exceed in solidity and strength, the roads one formerly saw in the grounds
of private gentlemen. These roads are almost flat, and when they have been
properly constructed, the wheel rolls over them as if passing along a bed
of iron. Apart from the levels, which, of course, are not so rigidly
observed, there is not, any very sensible difference between the draught
on a really good McAdamized road and on a railroad. We have a few roads in
America that are nearly as good as most one meets with, but we have
nothing that deserves to be termed a real imitation of the system of Mr.
McAdam.

The distance to Newport was only four or five miles. The town itself, a
borough, but otherwise of little note, lies in a very sweet vale, and is
neat but plain, resembling, in all but its greater appearance of
antiquity and the greater size of its churches, one of our own
provincial towns of the same size. A---- and myself took a fly, and
went, by a very rural road, to Carisbrooke, a distance of about a mile,
in quest of lodgings. Carisbrooke is a mere village, but the whole
valley in this part of the island is so highly cultivated, and so many
pretty cottages meet the eye--not cottages of the poor, but cottages of
the rich--that it has an air of finish and high cultivation that we are
accustomed to see only in the immediate vicinity of large towns, and not
always even there.

On reaching the hamlet of Carisbrooke we found ourselves immediately
beneath the castle. There was a fine old village church, one of those
picturesque rustic edifices which abound in England, a building that time
had warped and twisted in such a way as to leave few parallel lines, or
straight edges, or even regular angles, in any part of it. They told us,
also, that the remains of a ruined priory were at hand. We had often
laughed since at the eagerness and delight with which we hurried off to
look at these venerable objects. It was soon decided, however, that it was
a pleasure too exquisite to be niggardly enjoyed alone, and the carriage
was sent back with orders to bring up the whole party.

While the fly--a Liliputian coach drawn by a single horse, a sort of
diminutive buggy--was absent, we went in quest of the priory. The people
were very civil, and quite readily pointed out the way. We found the ruin
in a farmyard. There was literally nothing but a very small fragment of a
blind wall, but with these materials we went to work with the imagination,
and soon completed the whole edifice. We might even have peopled it, had
not Carisbrooke, with its keep, its gateway, and its ivy-clad ramparts,
lain in full view, inviting us to something less ideal. The church,
too--the rude, old, hump-backed church was already opened, waiting to be
inspected.

The interior of this building was as ancient, in appearance, at least,
and quite as little in harmony with right lines and regular angles, as
its exterior. All the wood-work was of unpainted oak, a colour, however,
that was scarcely dark enough to be rich; a circumstance which, to
American eyes, at least--eyes on whose lenses paint is ever
present--gave it an unfinished look. Had we seen this old building five
years later, we might have thought differently. As for the English oak,
of which one has heard so much, it is no great matter: our own common
oaks are much prettier, and, did we understand their beauty, there would
not be a village church in America that, in this particular, would not
excel the finest English cathedral. I saw nothing in all Europe, of this
nature, that equalled the common oaken doors of the hall at C----, which
you know so well.

A movement in the church-yard called us out, and we became pained
witnesses of the interment of two of the "unhonoured dead." The air,
manner and conduct of these funerals made a deep impression on us both.
The dead were a woman and a child, but of different families. There were
three or four mourners belonging to each party. Both the bodies were
brought in the same horse-cart, and they were buried by the same
service. The coffins were of coarse wood, stained with black, in a way
to betray poverty. It was literally _le convoi du pauvre_. Deference to
their superiors, and the struggle to maintain appearances--for there was
a semblance of the pomp of woe, even in these extraordinary groups, of
which all were in deep mourning--contrasted strangely with the extreme
poverty of the parties, the niggardly administration of the sacred
offices, and the business-like manner of the whole _transaction_. The
mourners evidently struggled between natural grief and the bewilderment
of their situation. The clergyman was a good-looking young man, in a
dirty surplice. Most probably he was a curate. He read the service in a
strong voice, but without reverence, and as if he were doing it by the
job. In every way short measure was dealt out to the poor mourners. When
the solemn words of "dust to dust, ashes to ashes," were uttered, he
bowed hastily towards each grave--he stood between them--and the
assistants met his wholesale administration of the rites with a
wholesale sympathy.

The ceremony was no sooner over, than the clergyman and his clerk retired
into the church. One or two of the men cast wistful eyes towards the
graves, neither of which was half filled, and reluctantly followed. I
could scarcely believe my senses, and ventured to approach the door. Here
I met such a view as I had never before seen, and hope never to witness
again. On one side of me two men were filling the graves; on the opposite,
two others were actually paying the funeral fees. In one ear was the
hollow sound of the clod on the coffin; in the other the chinking of
silver on the altar! Yea, literally on the altar! We are certainly far
behind this great people in many essential particulars; our manners are
less formed; our civilization is less perfect; but, thanks to the spirit
which led our ancestors into the wilderness! such mockery of the Almighty
and his worship, such a mingling of God and Mammon, never yet disgraced
the temple within the wide reach of the American borders.

We were joined by the whole party before the sods were laid on the graves
of the poor; but some time after the silver had been given for the
consolations of religion. With melancholy reflections we mounted to the
castle. A---- had been educated in opinions peculiarly favourable to
England; but I saw, as we walked mournfully away from the spot, that one
fact like this did more to remove the film from her eyes, than volumes of
reading.

Carisbrooke has been too often described to need many words. Externally,
it is a pile of high battlemented wall, completely buried in ivy, forming
within a large area, that was once subdivided into courts, of which
however, there are, at present, scarcely any remains. We found an old
woman as warder, who occupied a room or two in a sort of cottage that had
been made out of the ruins. The part of the edifice which had been the
prison of Charles I. was a total ruin, resembling any ordinary house,
without roof, floors, or chimneys. The aperture of the window through
which he attempted to escape is still visible. It is in the outer wall,
against which the principal apartments had been erected. The whole work
stands on a high irregular ridge of a rocky hill, the keep being much the
most elevated. We ascended to the sort of bastion which its summit forms,
whence the view was charming. The whole vale, which contains Carisbrooke
and Newport, with a multitude of cottages, villas, farm-houses and
orchards, with meads, lawns and shrubberies, lay in full view, and we had
distant glimpses of the water. The setting of this sweet picture, or the
adjacent hills, was as naked and brown as the vale itself was crowded with
objects and verdant. The Isle of Wight, as a whole, did not strike me as
being either particularly fertile or particularly beautiful, while it
contains certain spots that are eminently both. I have sailed entirely
round it more than once, and, judging from the appearance of its coasts,
and from what was visible in this little excursion, I should think that it
had more than a usual amount of waste treeless land. The sea-views are
fine, as a matter of course, and the air is pure and bracing. It is
consequently much frequented in summer. It were better to call it the
"watering-place," than to call it the "garden" of England.

We had come in quest of a house where the family might be left, for a few
days, while I went up to London. But the whole party was anxious to put
their feet in _bona fide_ old England before they crossed the Channel, and
the plan was changed to meet their wishes. We slept that night at Newport,
therefore, and returned in the morning to Cowes, early enough to get on
board a steam-boat for Southampton. This town lies several miles up an
estuary that receives one or two small streams. There are a few dwellings
on the banks of the latter, that are about the size and of the appearance
of the better sort of country-houses on the Hudson, although more
attention appears to have been generally paid to the grounds. There were
two more of Henry the Eighth's forts; and we caught a glimpse of a fine
ruined Gothic window in passing Netley Abbey.

We landed on the pier at Southampton about one, and found ourselves truly
in England. "Boat, sir, boat?" "Coach, sir, coach?" "London, sir,
London?"--"No; we have need of neither!"--"Thank'ee, sir--thank'ee, sir."
These few words, in one sense, are an epitome of England. They rang in our
ears for the first five minutes after landing. Pressing forward for a
livelihood, a multitude of conveniences, a choice of amusements, and a
trained, but a heartless and unmeaning civility. "No; I do not want a
boat." "Thank'ee, sir." You are just as much "thank'ee" if you do not
employ the man as if you did. You are thanked for condescending to give an
order, for declining, for listening. It is plain to see that such thanks
dwell only on the lips. And yet we so easily get to be sophisticated;
words can be so readily made to supplant things; deference, however
unmeaning, is usually so grateful, that one soon becomes accustomed to all
this, and even begins to complain that he is not imposed on.

We turned into the first clean-looking inn that offered. It was called the
Vine, and though a second-rate house, for Southampton even, we were
sufficiently well served. Everything was neat, and the waiter, an old man
with a powdered bead, was as methodical as a clock, and a most busy
servitor to human wants. He told me he had been twenty-eight years doing
exactly the same things daily, and in precisely the same place. Think of a
man crying "Coming, sir," and setting table, for a whole life, within an
area of forty feet square! Truly, this was not America.

The principal street in Southampton, though making a sweep, is a broad,
clean avenue, that is lined with houses having, with very few exceptions,
bow-windows, as far as an ancient gate, a part of the old defences of the
town. Here the High-street is divided into "Above-bar" and "Below-bar".
The former is much the most modern, and promises to be an exceedingly
pretty place when a little more advanced. "Below-bar" is neat and
agreeable too. The people appeared singularly well dressed, after New
York. The women, though less fashionably attired than our own, taking the
Paris modes for the criterion, were in beautiful English chintzes,
spotlessly neat, and the men all looked as if they had been born with
hat-brushes and clothes-brushes in their hands, and yet every one was in a
sort of seashore _costume_. I saw many men whom my nautical instinct
detected at once to be naval officers,--some of whom must have been
captains,--in round-abouts; but it was quite impossible to criticise
toilettes that were so faultlessly neat, and so perfectly well arranged.

We ordered dinner, and sallied forth in quest of lodgings. Southampton is
said to be peculiar for "long passages, bow-windows, and old maids." I can
vouch that it merits the two first distinctions. The season had scarcely
commenced, and we had little difficulty in obtaining rooms, the bow-window
and long passage included. These lodgings comprise one or more
drawing-rooms, the requisite number of bed-rooms, and the use of the
kitchen. The people of the house, ordinarily tradespeople, do the cooking
and furnish the necessary attendance. We engaged an extra servant, and
prepared to take possession that evening.

When we returned to the Vine, we found a visitor in this land of
strangers. Mrs. R----, of New York, a relative and an old friend, had
heard that Americans of our name were there, and she came doubting and
hoping to the Vine. We found that the windows of our own drawing-room
looked directly into those of hers. A few doors below us dwelt Mrs. L----,
a still nearer relative; and a few days later, we had _vis-à-vis_, Mrs.
M'A----, a sister of A----'s, on whom we all laid eyes for the first time
in our lives! Such little incidents recall to mind the close
consanguinity of the two nations; although for myself, I have always
felt as a stranger in England. This has not been so much from the want
of kindness and a community of opinion many subjects, as from a
consciousness, that in the whole of that great nation, there is not a
single individual with whom I could claim affinity. And yet, with a
slight exception, we are purely of English extraction. Our father was
the great-great-grandson of an Englishman. I once met with a man, (an
Englishman,) who bore so strong a resemblance to him, in stature, form,
walk, features and expression, that I actually took the trouble to
ascertain his name. He even had our own. I had no means of tracing the
matter any farther; but here was physical evidence to show the affinity
between the two people. On the other hand, A---- comes of the Huguenots.
She is purely American by every intermarriage, from the time of Louis
the Fourteenth down, and yet she found cousins in England at every turn,
and even a child of the same parents, who was as much of an Englishwoman
as she herself was an American.

We drank to the happiness of America, at dinner. That day, fifty years,
she declared herself a nation; that very day, and nearly at that hour,
two of the co-labourers in the great work we celebrated, departed in
company for the world of spirits!

A day or two was necessary to become familiarized to the novel objects
around us, and my departure for London was postponed. We profited by the
delay, to visit Netley Abbey, a ruin of some note, at no great distance
from Southampton. The road was circuitous, and we passed several pretty
country-houses, few of which exceeded in size or embellishments,
shrubbery excepted, similar dwellings at home. There was one, however,
of an architecture much more ancient than we had been accustomed to see,
it being, by all appearance, of the time of Elizabeth or James. It had
turrets and battlements, but was otherwise plain.

The abbey was a fine, without being a very imposing, ruin, standing in the
midst of a field of English neatness, prettily relieved by woods. The
window already mentioned formed the finest part. The effect of these ruins
on us proved the wonderful power of association. The greater force of the
past than of the future on the mind, can only be the result of
questionable causes. Our real concern with the future is incalculably the
greatest, and yet we are dreaming over our own graves, on the events and
scenes which throw a charm around the graves of those who have gone before
us! Had we seen Netley Abbey, just as far advanced towards completion, as
it was, in fact, advanced towards decay, our speculations would have been
limited by a few conjectures on its probable appearance; but gazing at it
as we did, we peopled its passages, imagined Benedictines stalking along
its galleries, and fancied that we heard the voices of the choir, pealing
among its arches.

Our fresh American feelings were strangely interrupted by the sounds of
junketing. A party of Southampton cockneys, (there are cockneys even in
New York,) having established themselves on the grass, in one of the
courts, were lighting a fire, and were deliberately proceeding to make
tea! "To tea, and ruins," the invitations most probably run. We
retreated into a little battery of the bluff King Hal, that was near by,
a work that sufficiently proved the state of nautical warfare in the
sixteenth century.




LETTER III.

Road to London.--Royal Pastime.--Cockney Coachman.--Winchester Assizes.
--Approach to London.--The Parks.--Piccadilly.--Street Excursion.
--Strangers in London.--Americans in England.--Westminster Abbey.
--Gothic Decorations.--Westminster Hall.--Inquisitive Barber.--Pasta
and Malibran.--Drury-lane Theatre.--A Pickpocket.--A Fellow-traveller.
--English Gentlemen.--A Radical.--Encampment of Gipsies.--National
Distinctions.--Antiquities.--National Peculiarities.


To R. COOPER, ESQ. COOPERSTOWN.

At a very early hour one of the London coaches stopped at the door. I had
secured a seat by the side of the coachman, and we went through the "bar"
at a round trot. The distance was about sixty miles, and I had paid a
guinea for my place. There were four or five other passengers, all on the
outside.

The road between Southampton and London is one of little interest; even
the highway itself is not as good as usual, for the first twenty or thirty
miles, being made chiefly of gravel, instead of broken stones. The soil
for a long distance was thirsty, and the verdure was nearly gone. England
feels a drought sooner than most countries, probably from the
circumstances of its vegetation being so little accustomed to the absence
of moisture, and to the comparative lightness of the dews. The winds,
until just before the arrival of the Hudson, had been blowing from the
eastward for several weeks, and in England this is usually a dry wind. The
roads were dusty, the hedges were brown, and the fields had nothing to
boast of over our own verdure. Indeed, it is unusual to see the grasses
of New York so much discoloured, so early in the season.

I soon established amicable relations with my companion on the box. He had
been ordered at the Vine to stop for an American, and he soon began to
converse about the new world. "Is America anywhere near Van Diemen's
Land?" was one of his first questions. I satisfied him on this head, and
he apologised for the mistake, by explaining that he had a sister settled
in Van Diemen's Land, and he had a natural desire to know something about
her welfare! We passed a house which had more the air of a considerable
place than any I had yet seen, though of far less architectural
pretensions than the miniature castle near Cowes. This, my companion
informed me, had once been occupied by George IV. when Prince of Wales.
"Here his Royal Highness enjoyed what I call the perfection of life, sir;
women, wine, and fox-hunting!" added the professor of the whip, with the
leer of a true amateur.

These coachmen are a class by themselves. They have no concern with
grooming the horses, and keep the reins for a certain number of relays.
They dress in a particular way, without being at all in livery or
uniform, like the continental postilions, talk in a particular way, and
act in a particular way. We changed this personage for another, about
half the distance between Southampton and London. His successor proved
to be even a still better specimen of his class. He was a thorough
cockney, and altogether the superior of his country colleague, he was
clearly the oracle of the boys, delivering his sentiments in the manner
of one accustomed to dictate to all in and about the stables. In
addition to this, there was an indescribable, but ludicrous salvo to his
dignity, in the way of surliness. Some one had engaged him to carry a
blackbird to town, and caused him to wait. On this subject he sang a
Jeremiad in the true cockney key. "He didn't want to _take_ the
_bla-a-a-ck-bud_; but if the man wanted to _send_ the _bla-a-a-ck-bud_,
why didn't he _bring_ the _bla-a-a-ck-bud_?" This is one of the hundred
dialects of the lower classes of the English. One of the horses of the
last team was restiff, and it became necessary to restrain him by an
additional curb before we ventured into the streets of London. I
intimated that I had known such horses completely subdued in America by
filling their ears with cotton. This suggestion evidently gave offence,
and he took occasion soon after to show it. He wrung the nose of the
horse with a cord, attaching its end below, in the manner of a severe
martingale. While going through this harsh process, which, by the way,
effectually subdued the animal, he had leisure to tell him that "he was
an _English_ horse, and not an _out-landish_ horse, and _he_ knew best
what was good for him," with a great deal more similar sound
nationality.

Winchester was the only town of any importance on the road. It is
pleasantly seated in a valley, is of no great size, is but meanly built,
though extremely neat, has a cathedral and a bishop, and is the shire-town
of Hampshire. The assizes were sitting, and Southampton was full of troops
that had been sent from Winchester, in order to comply with a custom which
forbids the military to remain near the courts of justice. England is full
of these political mystifications, and it is one of the reasons that she
is so much in arrears in many of the great essentials. In carrying out the
practice in this identical case, a serious private wrong was inflicted, in
order that, in form, an abstract and perfectly useless principle might be
maintained. The inns at Southampton were filled with troops, who were
billeted on the publicans, will ye, nill ye; and not only the masters of
the different houses, but travellers were subjected to a great
inconvenience, in order that this abstraction might not be violated. There
may be some small remuneration, but no one can suppose for a moment, that
the keeper of a genteel establishment of this nature wishes to see his
carriage-houses, gateways, and halls thronged with soldiers. Society
oppresses him to maintain appearances! At the present day the presence of
soldiers might be the means of sustaining justice, while there is not the
smallest probability that they would be used for contrary purposes, except
in cases in which this usage or law--for I believe there is a statue for
it--would not be in the least respected. This is not an age, nor is
England the country, in which a judge is to be overawed by the roll of a
drum. All sacrifices of common sense, and all recourse to plausible
political combinations, whether of individuals or of men, are uniformly
made at the expense of the majority. The day is certainly arrived when
absurdities like these should be done away with.

The weather was oppressively hot, nor do I remember to have suffered more
from the sun than during this little journey. Were I to indulge in the
traveller's propensity to refer everything to his own state of feeling,
you might be told what a sultry place England is in July. But I was too
old a sailor not to understand the cause. The sea is always more temperate
than the land, being cooler in summer and warmer in winter. After being
thirty days at sea, we all feel this truth, either in one way or the
other. I was quitting the coast, too, which is uniformly cooler than the
interior.

When some twelve or thirteen miles from town, the coachman pointed to a
wood enclosed by a wall, on our left. A rill trickled from the thicket,
and ran beneath the road. I was told that Virginia Water lay there, and
that the evening before a single footpad had robbed a coach in that
precise spot, or within a few hundred yards of the very place where the
King of England at the moment was amusing himself with the fishing-rod.
Highway robberies, however are now of exceedingly rare occurrence, that in
question being spoken of as the only one within the knowledge of my
informant for many years.

Our rate of travelling was much the same as that of one of our own better
sort of stages. The distance was not materially less than that between
Albany and C----n; the roads were not so hilly, and much better than our
own road; and yet, at the same season, we usually perform it in about the
same time that we went the distance between Southampton and London. The
scenery was tame, nor, with the exception of Winchester, was there a
single object of any interest visible until we got near London. We crossed
the Thames, a stream of trifling expanse, and at Kew we had a glimpse of
an old German-looking edifice in yellow bricks, with towers, turrets, and
battlements. This was one of the royal palaces. It stood on the opposite
side of the river, in the midst of tolerably extensive grounds. Here a
nearly incessant stream of vehicles commenced. I attempted to count the
stage-coaches, and got as high as thirty-three, when we met a line of
mail-coaches, that caused me to stop in despair. I think we met not less
than fifty within the last hour of our journey. There were seven belonging
to the mail in one group. They all leave London at the same hour, for
different parts of the kingdom.

At Hyde Park Corner I began to recall objects known in my early visits
to London. Apsley House had changed owners, and had become the property
of one whose great name was still in the germ, when I had last seen his
present dwelling. The Parks, a gateway or two excepted, were unchanged.
In the row of noble houses that line Piccadilly--in that
hospital-looking edifice, Devonshire House--in the dingy, mean,
irregular, and yet interesting front of St. James's--in Brookes's,
White's, the Thatched House, and various other historical _monuments_, I
saw no change. Buckingham House had disappeared, and an unintelligible
pile was rising on its ruins. A noble "_palazzo-non-finito_" stood at
the angle between the Green and St. James's Parks, and here and there I
discovered houses of better architecture than London was wont of old to
boast. One of the very best of these, I was told, was raised in honour
of Mercury, and probably out of his legitimate profits. It is called
Crockford's.

Our "_bla-a-a-ck-bud_" pulled up in the Strand, at the head of
Adam-street, Adelphi, and I descended from my seat at his side. An extra
shilling brought the glimmering of a surly smile athwart his
blubber-cheeks, and we parted in good-humour. My fellow-travellers were
all men of no very high class, but they had been civil, and were
sufficiently attentive to my wants, when they found I was a stranger, by
pointing out objects on the road, and explaining the usages of the inns.
One of them had been in America, and he boasted a little of his intimacy
with General This and Commodore That. At one time, too, he appeared
somewhat disposed to institute comparisons between the two countries, a
good deal at our expense, as you may suppose; but as I made no answers,
I soon heard him settling it with his companions, that, after all, it
was quite natural a man should not like to hear his own country abused;
and so he gave the matter up. With this exception, I had no cause of
complaint, but, on the contrary, good reason to be pleased.

I was set down at the Adam-street Hotel, a house much frequented by
Americans. The respectable woman who has so long kept it received me
with quiet civility, saw that I had a room, and promised me a dinner in
a few minutes. While the latter was preparing, having got rid of the
dust, I went out into the streets. The lamps were just lighted, and I
went swiftly along the Strand, recalling objects at every step. In this
manner I passed, at a rapid pace, Somerset House, St. Clement's-le-Dane,
St. Mary-le-Strand, Temple-bar, Bridge-street, Ludgate-hill, pausing
only before St. Paul's. Along the whole of this line I saw but little
change. A grand bridge, Waterloo, with a noble approach to it, had been
thrown across the river just above Somerset House, but nearly everything
else remained unaltered. I believe my manner, and the eagerness with
which I gazed at long-remembered objects, attracted attention; for I
soon observed I was dogged around the church by a suspicious-looking
fellow. He either suspected me of evil, or, attracted by my want of a
London air, he meditated evil himself. Knowing my own innocence, I
determined to bring the matter to an issue. We were alone, in a retired
part of the place, and, first making sure that my watch, wallet, and
handkerchief had not already disappeared, I walked directly up to him,
and looked him intently in the face, as if to recognize his features. He
took the hint, and, turning on his heels, moved nimbly of. It is
surprising how soon an accustomed eye will distinguish a stranger in the
streets of a large town. On mentioning this circumstance next day
to ----, he said that the Londoners pretend to recognize a rustic air in
a countess, if she has been six months from town. Rusticity in such
cases, however, must merely mean a little behind the fashions.

I had suffered curiosity to draw me two miles from my dinner, and was as
glad to get back as just before I had been to run away from it. Still
the past, with the recollections which crowded on the mind, bringing
with them a flood of all sorts of associations, prevented me from
getting into a coach, which would, in a measure, have excluded objects
from my sight. I went to bed that night with the strange sensation of
being again in London, after an interval of twenty years.

The next day I set about the business which had brought me to the
English capital. Most of our passengers were in town, and we met, as a
matter of course. I had calls from three or four Americans established
here, some in one capacity, and some in others; for our country has long
been giving back its increase to England, in the shape of admirals,
generals, judges, artists, writers and _notion-mongers_. But what is all
this compared to the constant accessions of Europeans among ourselves?
Eight years later, on returning home, I found New York, in feeling,
opinions, desires, (apart from profit,) and I might almost say, in
population, a foreign rather than American town.

I had passed months in London when a boy, and yet had no knowledge of
Westminster Abbey! I cannot account for this oversight, for I was a great
devotee of Gothic architecture, of which, by the way, I knew nothing,
except through the prints; and I could not reproach myself with a want of
proper curiosity on such subjects, for I had devoted as much time to their
examination as my duty to the ship would at all allow. Still, all I could
recall of the abbey was an indistinct image of two towers, with a glimpse
in at a great door. Now that I was master of my own movements, one of my
first acts was to hurry to the venerable church.

Westminster Abbey is built in the form of a cross, as is, I believe,
invariably the case with every Catholic church of any pretension. At its
northern end are two towers, and at its southern is the celebrated chapel
of Henry VII. This chapel is an addition, which, allowing for a vast
difference in the scale, resembles, in its general appearance, a school,
or vestry-room, attached to the end of one of our own churches. A Gothic
church is, indeed, seldom complete without such a chapel. It is not an
easy matter to impress an American with a proper idea of European
architecture. Even while the edifice is before his eyes, he is very apt to
form an erroneous opinion of its comparative magnitude. The proportions
aid deception in the first place, and absence uniformly exaggerates the
beauty and extent of familiar objects. None but those who have disciplined
the eye, and who have accustomed themselves to measure proportions by
rules more definite than those of the fancy, should trust to their
judgments in descriptions of this sort.

Westminster itself is not large, however, in comparison with St. Paul's,
and an ordinary parish church, called St. Margaret's, which must be, I
think, quite as large as Trinity, New York, and stands within a hundred
yards of the abbey, is but a pigmy compared with Westminster. I took a
position in St. Margaret's church-yard, at a point where the whole of the
eastern side of the edifice might be seen, and for the first time in my
life gazed upon a truly Gothic structure of any magnitude. It was near
sunset, and the light was peculiarly suited to the sombre architecture.
The material was a grey stone, that time had rendered dull, and which had
broad shades of black about its angles and faces. That of the chapel was
fresher, and of a warmer tint; a change well suited to the greater
delicacy of the ornaments.

The principal building is in the severer style of the Gothic, without,
however, being one of its best specimens. It is comparatively plain, nor
are the proportions faultless. The towers are twins, are far from being
high, and to me they have since seemed to have a crowded appearance, or to
be too near each other; a defect that sensibly lessens the grandeur of the
north front. A few feet, more or less, in such a case, may carry the
architect too much without, or too much within, the just proportions. I
lay claim to very little science on the subject, but I have frequently
observed since, that, to my own eye, (and the uninitiated can have no
other criterion,) these towers, as seen from the parks, above the tops of
the trees, have a contracted and pinched air.

But while the abbey church itself is as plain as almost any similar
edifice I remember, its great extent, and the noble windows and doors,
rendered it to me deeply impressive. On the other hand, the chapel is an
exquisite specimen of the most elaborated ornaments of the style. All
sorts of monstrosities have, at one period or another, been pressed into
the service of the Gothic, such as lizards, toads, frogs, serpents,
dragons, spitfires, and salamanders. There is, I believe, some typical
connexion between these offensive objects and the different sins. When
well carved, properly placed, and not viewed too near, their effect is far
from bad. They help to give the edifice its fretted appearance, or a look
resembling that of lace. Various other features, which have been taken
from familiar objects, such as parts of castellated buildings,
portcullises, and armorial bearings, help to make up the sum of the
detail. On Henry the Seventh's chapel, toads, lizards, and the whole group
of metaphorical sins are sufficiently numerous, without being offensively
apparent; while miniature portcullises, escutcheons, and other ornaments,
give the whole the rich and imaginative--almost fairy-like aspect,--which
forms the distinctive feature of the most ornamented portions of the
order. You have seen ivory work-boxes from the East, that were cut and
carved in a way to render them so very complicated, delicate, and
beautiful, that they please us without conveying any fixed forms to the
mind. It would be no great departure from literal truth, were I to bid you
fancy one of these boxes swelled to the dimensions of a church, the
material changed to stone, and, after a due allowance for a difference in
form, for the painted windows, and for the emblems, were I to add, that
such a box would probably give you the best idea of a highly-wrought
Gothic edifice, that any comparison of the sort can furnish.

I stood gazing at the pile, until I felt the sensation we term "a
creeping of the blood." I know that Westminster, though remarkable for
its chapel, was, by no means, a first-rate specimen of its own style of
architecture; and, at that moment, a journey through Europe promised to
be a gradation of enjoyments, each more exquisite than the other. All
the architecture of America united, would not assemble a tithe of the
grandeur, the fanciful, or of the beautiful, (a few imitations of
Grecian temples excepted,) that were to be seen in this single edifice.
If I were to enumerate the strong and excited feelings which are
awakened by viewing novel objects, I should place this short visit to
the abbey as giving birth in me to sensation No. 1. The emotion of a
first landing in Europe had long passed; our recent "land-fall" had been
like any other "land-fall," merely pleasant; and I even looked upon St.
Paul's as an old and a rather familiar friend. This was absolutely my
introduction to the Gothic, and it has proved to be an acquaintance
pregnant of more satisfaction than any other it has been my good fortune
to make since youth.

It was too late to enter the church, and I turned away towards the
adjoining public buildings. The English kings had a palace at Westminster,
in the times of the Plantagenets. It was the ancient usage to assemble the
parliament, which was little more than a _lit de justice_ previously to
the struggle which terminated in the commonwealth, in the royal residence,
and, in this manner, Westminster Palace became, permanently, the place for
holding the meetings of these bodies. The buildings, ancient and modern,
form a cluster on the banks of the river, and are separated from the abbey
by a street. I believe their site was once an island.

Westminster Hall was built as the banqueting room of the palace. There is
no uniformity in the architecture of the pile, which is exceedingly
complicated and confused. My examination, at this time, was too hurried
for details; and I shall refer you to a later visit to England for a
description. A vacant space at the abbey end of the palace is called Old
Palace-yard, which sufficiently indicates the locality of the ancient
royal residence; and a similar, but larger space or square, at the
entrance to the hall, is known as New Palace-yard. Two sides of the latter
are filled with the buildings of the pile; namely, the courts of law, the
principal part of the hall, and certain houses that are occupied by some
of the minor functionaries of the establishment, with buildings to contain
records, etc. The latter are mean, and altogether unworthy of the
neighbourhood. They were plastered on the exterior, and observing a hole
in the mortar, I approached and found to my surprise, that here, in the
heart of the English capital, as a part of the legislative and judicial
structures, in plain view, and on the most frequented square of the
vicinity, were houses actually built of wood, and covered with lath and
mortar!

The next morning I sent for a hair-dresser. As he entered the room I made
him a sign, without speaking, to cut my hair. I was reading the morning
paper, and my operator had got half through with his job, without a
syllable being exchanged between us, when the man of the comb suddenly
demanded, "What is the reason, sir, that the Americans think everything in
their own country so much better than it is everywhere else?" You will
suppose that the _brusquerie_, as well as the purport of this
interrogatory, occasioned some surprise. How he knew I was an American at
all I am unable to say, but the fellow had been fidgeting the whole time
to break out upon me with this question.

I mention the anecdote, in order to show you how lively and general the
feeling of jealousy has got to be among our transatlantic kinsmen. There
will be a better occasion to speak of this hereafter.

London was empty. The fashionable streets were actually without a soul,
for minutes at a time; and, without seeing it, I could not have believed
that a town which, at certain times, is so crowded as actually to render
crossing its streets hazardous, was ever so like a mere wilderness of
houses. During these recesses in dissipation and fashion, I believe that
the meanest residents disappear for a few months.

Our fellow-traveller, Mr. L----, however, was in London, and we passed a
day or two in company. As he is a votary of music, he took me to hear
Madame Pasta. I was nearly as much struck with the extent and magnificence
of the Opera-house, as I had been with the architecture of the Abbey. The
brilliant manner in which it was lighted, in particular, excited my
admiration, for want of light is a decided and a prominent fault of all
scenic exhibitions at home, whether they are made in public or in private.
Madame Pasta played _Semiramide_ "How do you like her?" demanded L----, at
the close of the first act. "Extremely; I scarce know which to praise the
most, the command and the range of her voice, or her powers as a mere
actress. But, don't you think her exceedingly like the _Signorina?_" The
present Madame Malibran was then singing in New York, under the name of
Signorina Garcia. L---- laughed, and told me the remark was well enough,
but I had not put the question in exactly the proper form. "Do you not
think the Signorina exceedingly like Madame Pasta?" would have been
better. I had got the matter wrong end foremost.

L---- reminded me of our having amused ourselves on the passage with the
nasal tones of the chorus at New York. He now directed my attention to
the same peculiarity here. In this particular I saw no difference; nor
should there be any, for I believe nearly all who are on the American
stage, in any character, are foreigners, and chiefly English.

The next day we went to old Drury, where we found a countryman, and
townsman, Mr. Stephen Price, in the chair of Sheridan. The season was
over, but we were shown the whole of the interior. It is also a
magnificent structure in extent and internal embellishment, though a
very plain brick pile externally. It must have eight or ten times the
cubic contents of the largest American theatre. The rival building,
Covent Garden, is within a few hundred feet of it, and has much more of
architectural pretension, though neither can lay claim to much. The
taste of the latter is very well, but it is built of that penny-saving
material, stuccoed bricks.

We dined with Mr. Price, and on the table was some of our own
justly-celebrated Madeira. L----, who is an oracle on these subjects,
pronounced it injured. He was told it was so lately arrived from New York,
that there had not been time to affect it. This fact, coupled with others
that have since come to my knowledge, induce me to believe that the change
of tastes, which is so often remarked in liquors, fruits, and other
eatables, is as much wrought on ourselves, as in the much-abused viands.
Those delicate organs which are necessary to this particular sense may
readily undergo modifications by the varieties of temperature. We know
that taste and its sister sense, smelling, are both temporarily destroyed
by colds. The voice is signally affected by temperature. In cold climates
it is clear and soft; in warm, harsh and deep. All these facts would serve
to sustain the probability of the theory that a large portion of the
strictures that are lavished on the products of different countries,
should be lavished on our own capricious organs. _Au reste_, the
consequence is much the same, let the cause be what it will.

Mr. M----, an Englishman, who has many business concerns with America,
came in while we were still at table, and I quitted the house in his
company. It was still broad daylight. As we were walking together, arm and
arm, my companion suddenly placed a hand behind him, and said, "My fine
fellow, you are there, are you?" A lad of about seventeen had a hand in
one of his pockets, feeling for his handkerchief. The case was perfectly
clear, for Mr. M---- had him still in his gripe when I saw them. Instead
of showing apprehension or shame, the fellow began to bluster and
threaten. My companion, after a word or two of advice, hurried me from the
spot. On expressing the surprise I felt at his permitting such a hardened
rogue to go at large, he said that our wisest course was to get away. The
lad was evidently supported by a gang, and we might be beaten as well as
robbed, for our pains. Besides, the handkerchief was not actually taken,
attendance in the courts was both expensive and vexatious, and he would be
bound over to prosecute. In England, the complainant is compelled to
prosecute, which is, in effect, a premium on crime! We retain many of the
absurdities of the common law, and, among others, some which depend on a
distinction between the intention and the commission of the act; but I do
not know that any of our States are so unjust as to punish a citizen, in
this way, because he has already been the victim of a rogue.

After all, I am not so certain our law is much better; but I believe more
of the _onus_ of obtaining justice falls on the injured party here than it
does with us: still we are both too much under the dominion of the common
law.

The next day I was looking at a bronze statue of Achilles, at Hyde Park
Corner, which had been erected in honour of the Duke of Wellington. The
place, like every other fashionable haunt at that season, was
comparatively deserted. Still, there might have been fifty persons in
sight. "Stop him! stop him!" cried a man, who was chasing another directly
towards me. The chase, to use nautical terms, began to lighten ship by
throwing overboard first one article and then another. As these objects
were cast in different directions, he probably hoped that his pursuer,
like Atalantis, might stop to pick them up. The last that appeared in the
air was a hat, when, finding himself hemmed in between three of us, the
thief suffered himself to be taken. A young man had been sleeping on the
grass, and this land-pirate had absolutely succeeded in getting his shoes,
his handkerchief, and his hat; but an attempt to _take off his cravat_ had
awoke the sleeper. In this case, the prisoner was marched off under sundry
severe threats of vengeance; for the _robbee_ was heated with the run, and
really looked so ridiculous that his anger was quite natural.

My business was now done, and I left London in a night-coach for
Southampton. The place of rendezvous was the White Horse Cellar, in
Piccadilly--a spot almost as celebrated for those who are _in transitu_,
as was the Isthmus of Suez of old. I took an inside seat this time, for
the convenience of a nap. At first, I had but a single fellow-traveller.
Venturing to ask him the names of one or two objects that we passed, and
fearing he might think my curiosity impertinent, I apologized for it, by
mentioning that I was a foreigner. "A foreigner!" he exclaimed; "why,
you speak English as well as I do myself!" I confess I had thought,
until that moment, that the advantage, in this particular, was
altogether on my side; but it seems I was mistaken. By way of relieving
his mind, however, I told him I was an American. "An American!" and he
seemed more puzzled than ever. After a few minutes of meditation on what
he had just heard, he civilly pointed to a bit of meadow through which
the Thames meanders, and good-naturedly told me it was Runnymeade. I
presume my manner denoted a proper interest, for he now took up the
subject of the English Barons, and entered into a long account of their
modern magnificence and wealth. This is a topic that a large class in
England, who only know their aristocracy by report, usually discuss with
great unction. They appear to have the same pride in the superiority of
their great families, that the American slave is known to feel in the
importance of his master. I say this seriously, and not with a view to
sneer, but to point out to you a state of feeling that, at first, struck
me as very extraordinary. I suppose that the feelings of both castes
depend on a very natural principle. The Englishman, however, as he is
better educated, has one respectable feature in his deference. He exults
with reason in the superiority of his betters over the betters of most
other people: in this particular he is fully borne out by the fact.
Subsequent observation has given me occasion to observe, that the
English gentleman, in appearance, attainments, manliness, and perhaps I
might add, principles, although this and deportment are points on which
I should speak with less confidence, stands at the head of his class in
Christendom. This should not be, nor would it be, were the gentlemen of
America equal to their fortunes, which, unhappily, they are not. Facts
have so far preceded opinions at home, as to leave but few minds capable
of keeping in their company. But this is a subject to which we may also
have occasion to return.

The coach stopped, and we took up a third inside. This man proved to be
a radical. He soon began to make side-hits at the "nobility and gentry,"
and, mingled with some biting truths, he uttered a vast deal of
nonsense. While he was in the midst of his denunciations, the coach
again stopped, and one of the outsides was driven into it by the night
air. He was evidently a gentleman, and the guard afterwards told me he
was a Captain Somebody, and a nephew of a Lord Something, to whose
country place he was going. The appearance of the captain checked the
radical for a little while; but, finding that the other was quiet, he
soon returned to the attack. The aristocrat was silent, and the admirer
of aristocracy evidently thought himself too good to enter into a
dispute with one of the mere people; for _to admire_ aristocracy was, in
his eyes, something like an _illustration_; but wincing under one of the
other's home-pushes, he said, "These opinions may do very well for this
gentleman," meaning me, who as yet had not uttered a syllable--"who is
an American; but I must say, I think them out of place in the mouth of
an Englishman." The radical regarded me a moment, and inquired if what
the other had just said was true. I answered that it was. He then began
an eulogium on America; which, like his Jeremiad on England, had a good
many truths blended with a great deal of nonsense. At length, he
unfortunately referred to me, to corroborate one of his most capital
errors. As this could not be done conscientiously, for his theory
depended on the material misconstruction of giving the whole legislative
power to Congress, I was obliged to explain the mistake into which he
had fallen. The captain and the _toady_ were both evidently pleased; nor
can I say, I was sorry the appeal had been made, for it had the effect
of silencing a commentator, who knew very little of his subject. The
captain manifested his satisfaction, by commencing a conversation, which
lasted until we all went to sleep. Both the captain and the radical
quitted us in the night.

Men like the one just described do the truth a great deal of harm. Their
knowledge does not extend to first principles, and they are always for
maintaining their positions by a citation of facts. One half of the latter
are imagined; and even that which is true is so enveloped with collateral
absurdities, that when pushed, they are invariably exposed. These are the
travellers who come among us Liberals, and go back Tories. Finding that
things fall short of the political Elysiums of their imaginations, they
fly into the opposite extreme, as a sort of _amende honorable_ to their
own folly and ignorance.

At the distance of a few miles from Winchester, we passed an encampment of
gipsies, by the way-side. They were better-looking than I had expected to
see them, though their faces were hardly perceptible in the grey of the
morning. They appeared well fed and very comfortably bivouacked. Why do
not these people appear in America? or, do they come, and get absorbed,
like all the rest, by the humane and popular tendencies of the country?
What a homage will it be to the institutions, if it be found that even a
gipsy cease to be a gipsy in such a country! Just as the sun rose, I got
out to our lodgings and went to bed.

After a sound sleep of two or three hours, I rose and went to the
drawing-room. A lady was in it, seated in a way to allow me to see no
more than a small part of her side-face. In that little, I saw the
countenance of your aunt's family. It was the sister whom we had never
seen, and who had hastened out of Hertfordshire to meet us. There are
obvious reasons why such a subject cannot be treated in this letter, but
the study of two sisters who had been educated, the one in England and
the other in America, who possessed so much in common, and yet, who were
separated by so much that was not in common, was to me a matter of
singular interest. It showed me, at a glance, the manner in which the
distinctive moral and physical features of nations are formed; the
points of resemblance being just sufficient to render the points of
difference more obvious.

A new and nearer route to Netley had been discovered during my absence,
and our unpractised Americans had done little else than admire ruins for
the past week. The European who comes to America plunges into the virgin
forest with wonder and delight; while the American who goes to Europe
finds his greatest pleasure, at first, in hunting up the memorials of the
past. Each is in quest of novelty, and is burning with the desire to gaze
at objects of which he has often read.

The steam-boat made but one or two voyages a week between Southampton
and Havre, and we were obliged to wait a day or two for the next trip.
The intervening time was passed in the manner just named. Every place of
any importance in England has some work or other written on the subject
of its history, its beauties, and its monuments. It is lucky to escape a
folio. Our works on Southampton, (which are of moderate dimensions,
however,) spoke of some Roman remains in the neighbourhood. The spot was
found, and, although the imagination was of greater use than common in
following the author's description, we stood on the spot with a species
of antiquarian awe.

Southampton had formerly been a port of some importance. Many of the
expeditions sent against France embarked here, and the town had once
been well fortified, for the warfare of the period. A good deal of the
old wall remains. All of this was industriously traced out; while the
bow-windows, long passages, and old maids, found no favour in our eyes.

One simple and touching memorial I well remember. There is a ferry
between the town and the grounds near Netley Abbey. A lady had caught a
cold, which terminated in death, in consequence of waiting on the shore,
during a storm, for the arrival of a boat. To protect others from a
similar calamity, she had ordered a very suitable defence against the
weather to be built on the fatal spot, and to be kept in repair for
ever. The structure is entirely of stone, small and exceedingly simple
and ingenious. The ground plan is that of a Greek cross. On this
foundation are reared four walls, which, of course, cross each other in
the centre at right angles. A little above the height of a man, the
whole is amply roofed. Let the wind blow which way it will, you perceive
there is always shelter. There is no external wall, and the diameter of
the whole does not exceed ten feet, if it be as much. This little work
is exceedingly English, and it is just as unlike anything American as
possible. It has its origin in benevolence, is original in the idea, and
it is picturesque. We might accomplish the benevolence, but it would be
of a more public character: the picturesque is a thing of which we
hardly know the meaning; and as for the originality, the dread of doing
anything different from his neighbour would effectually prevent an
American from erecting such a shelter; even charity with us being
subject to the control of the general voice. On the other hand, what a
clever expedient would have been devised, in the first instance, in
America, to get across the ferry without taking cold! All these little
peculiarities have an intimate connexion with national character and
national habits. The desire to be independent and original causes a
multitude of silly things to be invented here, while the apprehension of
doing anything different from those around them causes a multitude of
silly things to be _perpetuated_ in America; and yet we are children of
the same parents! When profit is in view, we have but one soul and that
is certainly inventive enough; but when money has been made, and is to
be spent, we really do not seem to know how to set about it, except by
routine.




LETTER IV.

Quit England.--Approach to France.--Havre.--Our Reception there.--Female
Commissionnaire.--Clamour of Drums.--Port of Havre.--Projected
Enterprize.--American Enterprize.--Steam-boat
Excursion.--Honfleur.--Rouen.--French Exaction.--American
Porters.--Rouen Cathedral.--Our Cicerone.--A Diligence.--Picturesque
Road.--European Peasantry.--Aspect of the Country.--Church at
Louviers.--Village near Vernon.--Rosny.--Mantes.--Bourbon Magnificence.
--Approach to Paris--Enter Paris.


To R. COOPER, ESQ., COOPERSTOWN.

On quitting England, we embarked from the very strand where Henry V.
embarked for the fruitless field of Agincourt. A fearful rumour had gone
abroad that the Camilla (the steam-boat) had been shorn of a wing, and
there were many rueful faces in the boat that took us off to the vessel.
In plainer speech, one of the boilers was out of order, and the passage
was to be made with just half the usual propelling power. At that
season, or indeed at any season, the only probable consequence was loss
of time. With a strong head-wind, it is true, the Camilla might have
been compelled to return; but this might also have happened with the use
of both the boilers.

Our adventurers did not see things in this light. The division of
employments, which produces prices so cheap and good, makes bad
travellers. Our boat's cargo embarked with fear and trembling, and "She
has but one boiler!" passed from mouth to mouth amid ominous faces. A
bachelor-looking personage, of about fifty, with his person well
swaddled in July, declared in a loud voice, that we were "all going on
board to be drowned." This startled A----, who, having full faith in my
nautical experience, asked what we were to think of it? It was a mere
question between ten hours and fifteen, and so I told her. The females,
who had just before been trembling with alarm, brightened at this, and
two or three of them civilly thanked me for the information they had
thus obtained incidentally!--"Boat, sir! boat!" "Thank 'ee, sir; thank
'ee, sir."

We found two or three parties on board of a higher condition than
common. Apprehension cast a shade over the cold marble-like polish of
even the English aristocrat; for if, as Mrs. Opie has well observed,
there is nothing "so like a lord in a passion as a commoner in a
passion," "your fear" is also a sad leveller. The boat was soon under
way, and gradually our cargo of mental apprehensions settled into the
usual dolorous physical suffering of landsmen in rough water. So much
for excessive civilization. The want of a boiler under similar
circumstances, would have excited no feeling whatever among a similar
number of Americans, nineteen in twenty of whom, thanks to their
rough-and-tumble habits, would know exactly what to think of it.

I was seated, during a part of the day, near a group of young men, who
were conversing with a lady of some three or four and twenty. They
expressed their surprise at meeting her on board. She told them it was a
sudden whim; that no one knew of her movements; she meant only to be gone
a fortnight, to take a run into Normandy. In the course of the
conversation I learned that she was single, and had a maid and a footman
with her. In this guise she might go where she pleased; whereas, had she
taken "an escort" in the American fashion, her character would have
suffered. This usage, however, is English rather than European. Single
women on the Continent, except in extraordinary cases, are obliged to
maintain far greater reserve even than with us; and there, single or
married, they cannot travel under the protection of any man who is not
very nearly connected with them, domestics and dependants excepted.

The debates about proceeding at all had detained us so long, and the
"one boiler" proved to be so powerless, that night set in, and we had
not yet made the coast of France. The breeze had been fresh, but it
lulled towards sunset, though not before we began to feel the influence
of the tides. About midnight, however, I heard some one exclaim, "Land!"
and we all hastened on deck, to take a first look at France.

The boat was running along beneath some cliffs. The moon was shining
bright, and her rays lighted up the chalky sides of the high coast,
giving them a ghostly hue. The towers of two lighthouses also glittered
on a headland near by. Presently a long sea-wall became visible, and,
rounding its end, we shot into smooth water. We entered the little port
of Havre between artificial works, on one of which stands a low,
massive, circular tower, that tradition attributes to no less a
personage than Julius Caesar.

What a change in so short a time! On the other side of the Channel,
beyond the usual demands for employment, which were made in a modest
way, and the eternal "Thank'ee, sir," there was a quiet in the people
that was not entirely free from a suspicion of surliness. Here every man
seemed to have two voices, both of which he used as if with no other
desire than to hear himself speak. Notwithstanding the hour, which was
past midnight, the quay was well lined, and a dozen officials poured on
board the boat to prevent our landing. Custom-house officers, gendarmes,
with enormous hats, and female commissionaires, were counteracting each
other at every turn. At length we were permitted to land, being ordered
up to a building near by. Here the females were taken into a separate
room, where their persons were examined by functionaries of their own
sex for contraband goods! This process has been described to me as being
to the last degree offensive and humiliating. My own person was
respected, I know not, why, for we were herded like sheep. As we were
without spot, at least so far as smuggling was concerned, we were soon
liberated. All our effects were left in the office, and we were turned
into the streets without even a rag but what we had on. This was an
inauspicious commencement for a country so polished; and yet, when one
comes to look at the causes, it is not easy to point out an alternative.
It was our own fault that we came so late.

The streets were empty, and the tall grey houses, narrow avenues, and
the unaccustomed objects, presented a strange spectacle by the placid
light of the moon. It appeared as if we had alighted in a different
planet. Though fatigued and sleepy, the whole party would involuntarily
stop to admire some novelty, and our march was straggling and irregular.
One house refused us after another, and it soon became seriously a
question whether the night was not to be passed in the open air. P----
was less than three years old, and as we had a regular gradation from
that age upward, our _début_ in France promised to be anything but
agreeable. The guide said his resources were exhausted, and hinted at
the impossibility of getting in. Nothing but the inns was open, and at
all these we were refused. At length I remembered that, in poring over
an English guide-book, purchased in New York, a certain Hôtel
d'Angleterre had been recommended as the best house in Havre.
"Savez-vous, mon ami, où est l'Hôtel d'Angleterre?"--"Ma fois, oui;
c'est tout près." This "ma fois, oui," was ominous, and the "c'est tout,
près," was more so still. Thither we went, however, and we were
received. Then commenced the process of climbing. We ascended several
stories, by a narrow crooked staircase, and were shown into rooms on the
fifth floor.

The floors were of waxed tiles, without carpets or mats, and the
furniture was tawdry. We got into our beds, which fatigue could scarcely
render it possible to endure, on account of the bugs. A more infernal
night I never passed, and I have often thought since, how hazardous it
is to trust to first impressions. This night, and one or two more passed
at Havre, and one other passed between Rouen and Paris, were among the
most uncomfortable I can remember; and yet if I were to name a country
in which one would be the most certain to get a good and a clean bed, I
think I should name France!

The next morning I arose and went down the ladder, for it was little
better, to the lower world. The servant wished to know if we intended to
use the _table d'hôte_, which he pronounced excellent. Curiosity induced
me to look at the appliances. It was a dark, dirty and crowded room, and
yet not without certain savoury smells. French cookery can even get the
better of French dirt. It was the only place about the house, the kitchen
excepted, where a tolerable smell was to be found, and I mounted to the
upper regions in self-defence.

An hour or two afterwards, the consul did me the favour to call. I
apologized for the necessity of causing him to clamber up so high. "It
is not a misfortune here," was the answer, "for the higher one is, the
purer is the atmosphere;" and he was right enough. It was not necessary
to explain that we were in an inferior house, and certainly everything
was extremely novel. At breakfast, however, there was a sensible
improvement. The linen was white as snow; we were served with silver
forks--it was a breakfast _à la fourchette_--spotlessly clean napkins,
excellent rolls, and delicious butter, to say nothing of _côtelettes_
that appeared to have been cooked by magic. Your aunt and myself looked
at each other with ludicrous satisfaction when we came to taste coffee,
which happened to be precisely at the same instant. It was the first
time either of us had ever tasted French coffee--it would scarcely be
exaggeration to say, that either of us had ever tasted coffee at all. I
have had many French cooks since; have lived years in the capital of
France itself, but I could never yet obtain a servant who understood the
secret of making _café au lait_, as it is made in most of the inns and
_cafés_ of that country. The discrepancy between the excellence of the
table and the abominations of the place struck them all, so forcibly,
that the rest of the party did little else but talk about it. As for
myself, I wished to do nothing but eat.

I had now another specimen of national manners. It was necessary to get
our luggage through the custom-house. The consul recommended a
_commissionnaire_ to help me. "You are not to be surprised," he said,
laughing, as he went away, "if I send you one in petticoats." In a few
minutes, sure enough, one of the _beau sexe_ presented herself. Her name
was Désirée, and an abler negotiator was never employed. She scolded,
coaxed, advised, wrangled, and uniformly triumphed. The officers were
more civil, by daylight, than we had found them under the influence of
the moon, and our business was soon effected.

W---- had brought with him a spy-glass. It was old and of little value,
but it was an heir-loom of the family. It came from the Hall at C----n,
and had become historical for its service in detecting deer, in the
lake, during the early years of the settlement. This glass had
disappeared. No inquiry could recover it. "Send for Désirée," said the
consul. Désirée came, received her orders, and in half an hour the glass
was restored. There was an oversight in not getting a passport, when we
were about to quit Havre. The office hours were over, and the steam-boat
could not wait. "Were is Désirée?" Désirée was made acquainted with the
difficulty, and the passport was obtained. "Désirée, où est Désirée?"
cried some one in the crowd, that had assembled to see the Camilla start
for England, the day after our arrival. "Here is an Englishman who is
too late to get his passport _viséd_," said this person to Désirée, so
near me that I heard it all; "the boat goes in ten minutes--what is to
be done?"--"_Ma foi_--it is too late!" "Try, _ma bonne_--it's a pity he
should lose his passage--_voici_." The Englishman gave his fee. Désirée
looked about her, and then taking the idler by the arm, she hurried him
through the crowd, this way and that way, ending by putting him aboard
without any passport at all. "It is too late to get one," she said; "and
they can but send you back." He passed undetected. France has a plenty
of these managing females, though Désirée is one of the cleverest of
them all. I understood this woman had passed a year or two in England,
expressly to fit herself for her present occupation, by learning the
language.

While engaged in taking our passages on board the steam-boat for Rouen,
some one called me by name, in English. The sound of the most familiar
words, in one's own language, soon get to be startling in a foreign
country. I remember, on returning to England, after an absence of five
years, that it was more than a week before I could persuade myself I was
not addressed whenever a passer-by spoke suddenly. On the present
occasion, I was called to by an old schoolboy acquaintance, Mr. H----r,
who was a consul in England, but who had taken a house on what is called
the _Côte_, a hill-side, just above Ingouville, a village at no great
distance from the town. We went out to his pretty little cottage, which
enjoyed a charming view. Indeed I should particularize this spot as the
one which gave me the first idea of one species of distinctive European
scenery. The houses cling to the declivity, rising above each other in a
way that might literally enable one to toss a stone into his neighbour's
chimney-top. They are of stone, but being whitewashed, and very
numerous, they give the whole mountain-side the appearance of a pretty
hamlet, scattered without order in the midst of gardens. Italy abounds
with such little scenes; nor are they unfrequent in France, especially
in the vicinity of towns; though whitened edifices are far from being
the prevailing taste of that country.

That evening we had an infernal clamour of drums in the principal street,
which happened to be our own. There might have been fifty, unaccompanied
by any wind instrument. The French do not use the fife, and when one is
treated to the drum, it is generally in large potions, and nothing but
drum. This is a relic of barbarism, and is quite unworthy of a musical
age. There is more or less of it in all the garrisoned towns of Europe.
You may imagine the satisfaction with which one listens to a hundred or
two of these plaintive instruments, beat between houses six or eight
stories high, in a narrow street, and with desperate perseverance! The
object is to recall the troops to their quarters.

Havre is a tide-harbour. In America, where there is, on an average, not
more than five feet of rise and fall to the water of the sea, such a
haven would, of course, be impracticable for large vessels. But the
majority of the ports on the British Channel are of this character, and
indeed a large portion of the harbours of Great Britain. Calais,
Boulogne, Havre, and Dieppe, are all inaccessible at low water. The
cliffs are broken by a large ravine, a creek makes up the gorge, or a
small stream flows outward into the sea, a basin is excavated, the
entrance is rendered safe by moles which project into deep water, and
the town is crowded around this semi-artificial port as well as
circumstances will allow. Such is, more or less, the history of them
all. Havre, however, is in some measure an exception. It stands on a
plain, that I should think had once been a marsh. The cliffs are near
it, seaward, and towards the interior there are fine receding hills,
leaving a sufficient site, notwithstanding, for a town of large
dimensions.

The port of Havre has been much improved of late years. Large basins have
been excavated, and formed into regular wet docks. They are nearly in the
centre of the town. The mole stretches out several hundred yards on that
side of the entrance of the port which is next the sea. Here signals are
regularly made to acquaint vessels in the offing with the precise number
of feet that can be brought into the port. These signals are changed at
the rise or fall of every foot, according to a graduated scale which is
near the signal pole. At dead low water the entrance to the harbour, and
the outer harbour itself, are merely beds of soft mud. Machines are kept
constantly at work to deepen them.

The ship from sea makes the lights, and judges of the state of the tide
by the signals. She rounds the Mole-Head at the distance of fifty or
sixty yards, and sails along a passage too narrow to admit another
vessel, at the same moment, into the harbour. Here she finds from
eighteen to twenty, or even twenty-four feet of water, according to
circumstances. She is hauled up to the gates of a dock, which are opened
at high water only. As the water falls, one gate is shut, and the
entrance to the dock becomes a lock: vessels can enter, therefore, as
long as there remains sufficient water in the outer harbour for a ship
to float. If caught outside, however, she must lie in the mud until the
ensuing tide.

Havre is the sea-port of Paris, and is rapidly increasing in importance.
There is a project for connecting the latter with the sea by a ship
channel. Such a project is hardly suited to the French impulses, which
imagine a thousand grand projects, but hardly ever convert any of them
to much practical good. The opinions of the people are formed on habits
of great saving, and it requires older calculations, greater familiarity
with risks, and more liberal notions of industry, and, possibly, more
capital than is commonly found in their enterprises, to induce the
people to encounter the extra charges of these improvements, when they
can have recourse to what, in their eyes, are simpler and safer means of
making money. The government employs men of science, who conceive well;
but their conceptions are but indifferently sustained by the average
practical intellect of the country. In this particular France is the
very converse of America.

The project of making a sea-port of Paris, is founded on a principle
that is radically wrong. It is easier to build a house on the sea-side,
than to carry the sea into the interior. But the political economy of
France, like that of nearly all the continental nations, is based on a
false principle, that of forcing improvements. The intellects of the
mass should first be acted on, and when the public mind is sufficiently
improved to benefit by innovations, the public sentiment might be
trusted to decide the questions of locality and usefulness. The French
system looks to a concentration of everything in Paris. The political
organization of the country favours such a scheme, and in a project of
this sort, the interests of all the northern and western departments
would be sacrificed to the interests of Paris. As for the departments
east and south of Paris, they would in no degree be benefited by making
a port of Paris, as goods would still have to be transshipped to reach
them. A system of canals and railroads is much wanted in France, and
most of all, a system of general instruction, to prepare the minds of
the operatives to profit by such advantages. When I say that we are
behind our facts in America, I do not mean in a physical, but in a moral
sense. All that is visible and tangible is led by opinion; in all that
is purely moral, the facts precede the notions of the people.

I found, at a later day, many droll theories broached in France, more
especially in the Chamber of Deputies, on the subject of our own great
success in the useful enterprises. As is usual, in such cases, any
reason but the true one was given. At the period of our arrival in
Europe, the plan of connecting the great lakes with the Atlantic had
just been completed, and the vast results were beginning to attract
attention in Europe. At first, it was thought, as a matter of course,
that engineers from the old world had been employed. This was disproved,
and it was shown that they who laid out the work, however skilful they
may have since become by practice, were at first little more than common
American surveyors. Then the trifling cost was a stumbling-block, for
labour was known to be far better paid in America than in Europe; and
lastly, the results created astonishment. Several deputies affirmed that
the cause of the great success was owing to the fact, that in America we
trusted such things to private competition, whereas, in France, the
government meddled with everything. But it was the state governments,
(which indeed alone possess the necessary means and authority,) that had
caused most of the American canals to be constructed. These political
economists knew too little of other systems to apply a clever saying of
their own--_Il y a de la Rochefoucald, et de la Rouchefoucald_. All
governments do not wither what they touch.

Some Americans have introduced steam-boats on the rivers of France, and
on the lakes of Switzerland and Italy. We embarked in one, after passing
two delectable nights at the Hôtel d'Angleterre. The boat was a
frail-looking thing, and so loaded with passengers, that it appeared
actually to stagger under its freight. The Seine has a wide mouth, and a
long ground-swell was setting in from the Channel. Our Parisian
cockneys, of whom there were several on board, stood aghast. "Nous voici
en pleine mer!" one muttered to the other, and the annals of that
eventful voyage are still related, I make no question, to admiring
auditors in the interior of France. The French make excellent seamen
when properly trained; but I think, on the whole, they are more
thoroughly landsmen than any people of my acquaintance, who possess a
coast. There has been too much sympathy with the army to permit the
mariners to receive a proper share of the public favour.

The boat shaped her course diagonally across the broad current, directly
for Honfleur. Here we first began to get an idea of the true points of
difference between our own scenery and that of the continent of Europe,
and chiefly of that of France. The general characteristics of England
are not essentially different from those of America, after allowing for
a much higher finish in the former, substituting hedges for fences, and
stripping the earth of its forests. These, you may think, are, in
themselves, grand points of difference, but they fall far short of those
which render the continent of Europe altogether of a different nature.
Of forest, there is vastly more in France than in England. But, with few
exceptions, the fields are not separated by enclosures. The houses are
of stone, or of wood, rough-cast. Honfleur, as we approached, had a grey
distinctness that is difficult to describe. The atmosphere seemed
visible, around the angles of the buildings, as in certain Flemish
pictures, bringing out the fine old sombre piles from the depth of the
view, in a way to leave little concealed, while nothing was meretricious
or gaudy. At first, though we found these hues imposing, and even
beautiful, we thought the view would have been gayer and more agreeable,
had the tints been livelier; but a little use taught us that our tastes
had been corrupted. On our return home every structure appeared flaring
and tawdry. Even those of stone had a recent and mushroom air, besides
being in colours equally ill suited to architecture or a landscape. The
only thing of the sort in America which appeared venerable and of a
suitable hue, after an absence of eight years, was our own family abode,
and this, the despoiler, paint, had not defiled for near forty years.

We discharged part of our cargo at Honfleur, but the boat was still
greatly crowded. Fatigue and ill health rendered standing painful to
A----, and all the benches were crowded. She approached a young girl of
about eighteen, who occupied _three chairs_. On one she was seated; on
another she had her feet; and the third held her _reticule_. Apologizing
for the liberty, A---- asked leave to put the _reticule_ on the second
chair, and to take the third for her own use. This request was refused!
The selfishness created by sophistication and a factitious state of
things renders such acts quite frequent, for it is more my wish to offer
you distinctive traits of character than exceptions. This case of
selfishness might have been a little stronger than usual, it is true,
but similar acts are of daily occurrence, _out of society_, in France.
_In society_, the utmost respect to the wants and feelings of others is
paid, vastly more than with us; while, with us, it is scarcely too
strong to say that such an instance of unfeeling selfishness could
scarcely have occurred at all. We may have occasion to inquire into the
causes of this difference in national manners hereafter.

The Seine narrows at Quilleboeuf, about thirty miles from Havre, to the
width of an ordinary European tide river. On a high bluff we passed a
ruin, called _Tancarville_, which was formerly a castle of the De
Montmorencies. This place was the cradle of one of William's barons; and
an English descendant, I believe, has been ennobled by the title of Earl
of Tankerville.

Above Quilleboeuf the river becomes exceedingly pretty. It is crooked, a
charm in itself, has many willowy islands, and here and there a grey
venerable town is seated in the opening of the high hills which contract
the view, with crumbling towers, and walls that did good service in the
times of the old English and French wars. There were fewer seats than
might have been expected, though we passed three or four. One near the
waterside, of some size, was in the ancient French style, with avenues
cut in formal lines, mutilated statues, precise and treeless terraces,
and other elaborated monstrosities. These places are not entirely
without a pretension to magnificence; but, considered in reference to
what is desirable in landscape gardening, they are the very _laid idéal_
of deformity. After winding our way for eight or ten hours amid such
scenes, the towers of Rouen came in view. They had a dark ebony-coloured
look, which did great violence to our Manhattanese notions, but which
harmonized gloriously with a bluish sky, the grey walls beneath, and a
background of hanging fields.

Rouen is a sea-port; vessels of two hundred, or two hundred and fifty
tons burden, lying at its quays. Here is also a custom-house, and our
baggage was again opened for examination. This was done amid a great
deal of noise and confusion, and yet so cursorily as to be of no real
service. At Havre, landing as we did in the night, and committing all to
Désirée the next day, I escaped collision with subordinates. But, not
having a servant, I was now compelled to look after our effects in
person. W---- protested that we had fallen among barbarians; what
between brawls, contests for the trunks, cries, oaths, and snatching,
the scene was equally provoking and comic.

Without schooling, without training of any sort, little checked by
morals, pressed upon by society, with nearly every necessary of life
highly taxed, and yet entirely loosened from the deference of feudal
manners, the Frenchmen of this class have, in general, become what they
who wish to ride upon their fellow mortals love to represent them as
being, truculent, violent, greedy of gain, and but too much disposed to
exaction. There is great _bonhomie_ and many touches of chivalry in the
national character; but it is asking too much to suppose that men who
are placed in the situation I have named, should not exhibit some of the
most unpleasant traits of human infirmity. Our trunks were put into a
handbarrow, and wheeled by two men a few hundred yards, the whole
occupying half an hour of time. For this service ten francs were
demanded. I offered five, or double what would have been required by a
drayman in New York, a place where labour is proverbially dear. This was
disdainfully refused, and I was threatened with the law. Of the latter I
knew nothing; but, determined not to be bullied into what I felt
persuaded was an imposition, I threw down the five francs and walked
away. These fellows kept prowling about the hotel the whole day,
alternately wheedling and menacing, without success. Towards night one
of them appeared, and returned the five francs, saying, that he gave me
his services for nothing. I thanked him, and put the money in my pocket.
This fit of dignity lasted about five minutes, when, as _finale_, I
received a proposal to pay the money again, and bring the matter to a
close, which was done accordingly.

An Englishman of the same class would have done his work in silence,
with a respect approaching to servility, and with a system that any
little _contretems_ would derange. He would ask enough, take his money
with a "thank 'ee, sir," and go off looking as surly as if he were
dissatisfied. An American would do his work silently, but independently
as to manner--but a fact will best illustrate the conduct of the
American. The day after we landed at New-York, I returned to the ship
for the light articles. They made a troublesome load, and filled a
horse-cart. "What do you think I _ought_ to get for carrying this load,
'sqire?" asked the cartman, as he looked at the baskets, umbrellas,
band-boxes, valises, secretaries, trunks, etc. etc.; "it is quite two
miles to Carroll Place." "It is, indeed; what is your fare?" "Only
thirty-seven and a half cents;" (about two francs;) "and it is justly
worth seventy-five, there is so much trumpery." "I will give you a
dollar." "No more need be said, sir; you shall have everything safe." I
was so much struck with this straight-forward manner of proceeding, after
all I had undergone in Europe, that I made a note of it the same day.

The Hôtel de l'Europe, at Rouen, was not a first-rate inn, for France,
but it effectually removed the disagreeable impression left by the Hôtel
d'Angleterre, at Havre. We were well lodged, well fed, and otherwise
well treated. After ordering dinner, all of a suitable age hurried off
to the cathedral.

Rouen is an old, and by no means a well-built town. Some improvements
along the river are on a large scale, and promise well; but the heart of
the city is composed principally of houses of wooden frames, with the
interstices filled in with cement. Work of this kind is very common in
all the northern provincial towns of France. It gives a place a
singular, and not altogether an unpicturesque air; the short dark studs
that time has imbrowned, forming a sort of visible ribs to the houses.

When we reached the little square in front of the cathedral, verily
Henry the Seventh's chapel sunk into insignificance. I can only compare
the effect of the chiselling on the quaint Gothic of this edifice, to
that of an enormous skreen of dark lace, thrown into the form of a
church. This was the first building of the kind that my companions had
ever seen; and they had, insomuch, the advantage over me, as I had, in a
degree, taken off the edge of wonder by the visit already mentioned to
Westminster. The first look at this pile was one of inextricable
details. It was not difficult to distinguish the vast and magnificent
doors, and the beautiful oriel windows, buried as they were in ornament;
but an examination was absolutely necessary to trace the little towers,
pinnacles, and the crowds of pointed arches, amid such a scene of
architectural confusion. "It is worth crossing the Atlantic, were it
only to see this!" was the common feeling among us.

It was some time before we discovered that divers dwellings had actually
been built between the buttresses of the church, for their comparative
diminutiveness, quaint style, and close incorporation with the pile,
caused us to think them, at first, a part of the edifice itself. This
desecration of the Gothic is of very frequent occurrence on the
continent of Europe, taking its rise in the straitened limits of
fortified towns, the cupidity of churchmen, and the general indifference
to knowledge, and, consequently, to taste, which depressed the ages that
immediately followed the construction of most of these cathedrals.

We were less struck by the interior, than by the exterior of this
building. It is vast, has some fine windows, and is purely Gothic; but
after the richness of the external details, the aisles and the choir
appeared rather plain. It possessed, however, in some of its monuments,
subjects of great interest to those who had never stood over a grave of
more than two centuries, and rarely even over one of half that age. Among
other objects of this nature, is the heart of Coeur de Lion, for the
church was commenced in the reign of one of his predecessors; Normandy at
that time belonging to the English kings, and claiming to be the
depository of the "lion heart."

Rouen has many more memorials of the past. We visited the square in
which Joan of Arc was burned; a small irregular area in front of her
prison; the prison itself, and the hall in which she had been condemned.
All these edifices are Gothic, quaint, and some of them sufficiently
dilapidated.

I had forgotten to relate, in its place, a fact, as an offset to the
truculent garrulity of the porters. We were shown round the cathedral by
a respectable-looking old man in a red scarf, a cocked hat, and a
livery, one of the officers of the place. He was respectful, modest, and
well instructed in his tale. The tone of this good old cicerone was so
much superior to anything I had seen in England--in America such a
functionary is nearly unknown--that, under the influence of our national
manners, I had awkward doubts as to the propriety of offering him money.
At length the five francs rescued from the cupidity of the
half-civilized peasants of _la basse Normandie_ were put into his hand.
A look of indecision caused me to repent the indiscretion. I thought his
feelings had been wounded. "Est-ce que monsieur compte me présenter tout
ceci?" I told him I hoped he would do me the favour to accept it. I had
only given _more_ than was usual, and the honesty of the worthy cicerone
hesitated about taking it. To know when to pay, and what to pay, is a
useful attainment of the experienced traveller.

Paris lay before us, and, although Rouen is a venerable and historical
town, we were impatient to reach the French capital. A carriage was
procured, and, on the afternoon of the second day, we proceeded.

After quitting Rouen the road runs, for several miles, at the foot of
high hills, and immediately on the banks of the Seine. At length we were
compelled to climb the mountain which terminates near the city, and
offers one of the noblest views in France, from a point called St.
Catherine's Hill. We did not obtain so fine a prospect from the road,
but the view far surpassed anything we had yet seen in Europe. Putting
my head out of the window, when about half way up the ascent, I saw an
object booming down upon us, at the rate of six or eight miles the hour,
that resembled in magnitude at least a moving house. It was a diligence,
and being the first we had met, it caused a general sensation in our
party. Our heads were in each other's way, and finding it impossible to
get a good view in any other manner, we fairly alighted in the highway,
old and young, to look at the monster unincumbered. Our admiration and
eagerness caused as much amusement to the travellers it held, as their
extraordinary equipage gave rise to among us; and two merrier parties
did not encounter each other on the public road that day.

A proper diligence is formed of a chariot-body, and two coach-bodies
placed one before the other, the first in front. These are all on a
large scale, and the wheels and train are in proportion. On the roof
(the three bodies are closely united) is a cabriolet, or covered seat,
and baggage is frequently piled there, many feet in height. A large
leathern apron covers the latter. An ordinary load of hay, though wider,
is scarcely of more bulk than one of these vehicles, which sometimes
carries twenty-five or thirty passengers, and two or three tons of
luggage. The usual team is composed of five horses, two of which go on
the pole, and three on the lead, the latter turning their heads
outwards, as W---- remarked, so as to resemble a spread eagle.
Notwithstanding the weight, these carriages usually go down a hill
faster than when travelling on the plain. A bar of wood is brought, by
means of a winch that is controlled by a person called the _conducteur_,
one who has charge of both ship and cargo, to bear on the hind wheels,
with a greater or less force, according to circumstances, so that all
the pressure is taken off the wheel horses. A similar invention has
latterly been applied to railroad cars. I have since gone over this
very road with ten horses, two on the wheel, and eight in two lines on
the lead. On that occasion, we came down this very hill, at the rate of
nine miles the hour.

After amusing ourselves with the spectacle of the diligence, we found the
scenery too beautiful to re-enter the carriage immediately, and we walked
to the top of the mountain. The view from the summit was truly admirable.
The Seine comes winding its way through a broad rich valley, from the
southward, having just before run east, and, a league or two beyond due
west, our own Susquehanna being less crooked. The stream was not broad,
but its numerous isles, willowy banks, and verdant meadows, formed a line
for the eye to follow. Rouen in the distance, with its ebony towers,
fantastic roofs, and straggling suburbs, lines its shores, at a curvature
where the stream swept away west again, bearing craft of the sea on its
bosom. These dark old towers have a sombre, mysterious air, which
harmonizes admirably with the recollections that crowd the mind at such a
moment! Scarce an isolated dwelling was to be seen, but the dense
population is compressed into villages and _bourgs_, that dot the view,
looking brown and teeming, like the nests of wasps. Some of these places
have still remains of walls, and most of them are so compact and well
defined that they appear more like vast castles than like the villages of
England or America. All are grey, sombre, and without glare, rising from
the background of pale verdure, so many appropriate _bas reliefs_.

The road was strewed with peasants of both sexes, wending their way
homeward, from the market of Rouen. One, a tawny woman, with no other
protection for her head than a high but perfectly clean cap, was going
past us, driving an ass, with the panniers loaded with manure. We were
about six miles from the town, and the poor beast, after staggering some
eight or ten miles to the market in the morning, was staggering back
with this heavy freight, at even. I asked the woman, who, under the
circumstances, could not be a resident of one of the neighbouring
villages, the name of a considerable _bourg_ that lay about a gun-shot
distant, in plain view, on the other side of the river. "Monsieur, je ne
saurais pas vous dire, parce que, voyez-vous, je ne suis pas de ce
pays-là," was the answer!

Knowledge is the parent of knowledge. He who possesses most of the
information of his age will not quietly submit to neglect its current
acquisitions, but will go on improving as long as means and
opportunities offer; while he who finds himself ignorant of most things,
is only too apt to shrink from a labour which becomes Herculean. In this
manner ambition is stifled, the mind gets to be inactive, and finally
sinks into unresisting apathy. Such is the case with a large portion of
the European peasantry. The multitude of objects that surround them
becomes a reason of indifference; and they pass, from day to day, for a
whole life, in full view of a town, without sufficient curiosity in its
history to inquire its name, or, if told by accident, sufficient
interest to remember it. We see this principle exemplified daily in
cities. One seldom thinks of asking the name of a passer-by, though he
may be seen constantly; whereas, in the country, such objects being
comparatively rare, the stranger is not often permitted to appear
without some question touching his character.[3]

[Footnote 3: When in London, two years later, I saw a gentleman of rather
striking appearance pass my door for two months, five or six times of a
morning. Remembering the apathy of the Norman peasant, I at length asked
who it was--"Sir Francis Burdett," was the answer.]

I once inquired of a servant girl, at a French inn, who might be the
owner of a chateau near by, the gate of which was within a hundred feet
of the house we were in. She was unable to say, urging, as an apology,
that she had only been six weeks in her present place! This, too, was in
a small country hamlet. I think every one must have remarked, _coeteris
paribus_, how much more activity and curiosity of mind is displayed by a
countryman who first visits a town, than by the dweller in a city who
first visits the country. The first wishes to learn everything, since be
has been accustomed to understand everything he has hitherto seen; while
the last, accustomed to a crowd of objects, usually regards most of the
novel things he now sees for the first time with indifference.

The road, for the rest of the afternoon, led us over hills and plains,
from one reach of the river to another, for we crossed the latter
repeatedly before reaching Paris. The appearance of the country was
extraordinary in our eyes. Isolated houses were rare, but villages
dotted the whole expanse. No obtrusive colours; but the eye had
frequently to search against the hill-side, or in the valley, and, first
detecting a mass, it gradually took in the picturesque angles, roofs,
towers, and walls of the little _bourg_. Not a fence, or visible
boundary of any sort, to mark the limits of possessions. Not a hoof in
the fields grazing, and occasionally, a sweep of mountain-land resembled
a pattern-card, with its stripes of green and yellow, and other hues,
the narrow fields of the small proprietors. The play of light and shade
on these gay upland patches though not strictly in conformity with the
laws of taste, certainly was attractive. When they fell entirely into
shadow, the harvest being over, and their gaudy colours lessened, they
resembled the melancholy and wasted vestiges of a festival.

At Louviers we dined, and there we found a new object of wonder in the
church. It was of the Gothic of the _bourgs_, less elaborated and more
rudely wrought than that of the larger towns, but quaint, and, the
population considered, vast. Ugly dragons thrust out their grinning
heads at us from the buttresses. The most agreeable monstrosities
imaginable were crawling along the grey old stones. After passing this
place, the scenery lost a good deal of the pastoral appearance which
renders Normandy rather remarkable in France, and took still more of the
starched pattern-card look, just mentioned. Still it was sombre, the
villages were to be extracted by the eye from their setting of fields,
and here and there one of those "silent fingers pointing to the skies"
raised itself into the air, like a needle, to prick the consciences of
the thoughtless. The dusky hues of all the villages contrasted oddly,
and not unpleasantly, with the carnival colours of the grains.

We slept at Vernon, and, before retiring for the night, passed half an
hour in a fruitless attempt to carry by storm a large old circular tower,
that is imputed to the inexhaustible industry of Caesar. This was the
third of his reputed works that we had seen since landing in France. In
this part of Europe, Caesar has the credit of everything for which no one
else is willing to apply, as is the case with Virgil at Naples.

It was a sensation to rise in the morning with the rational prospect of
seeing Paris, for the first time in one's life, before night. In my
catalogue it stands numbered as sensation the 5th; Westminster, the
night arrival in France, and the Cathedral of Rouen, giving birth to
numbers 1, 2, and 4. Though accustomed to the tattoo, and the evening
bugle of a man-of-war, the drums of Havre had the honour of number 3.
Alas! how soon we cease to feel those agreeable excitements at all, even
a drum coming in time to pall on the ear!

Near Vernon we passed a village, which gave us the first idea of one
feature in the old _régime_. The place was grey, sombre, and
picturesque, as usual, in the distance; but crowded, dirty,
inconvenient, and mean, when the eye got too near. Just without the
limits of its nuisances stood the chateau, a regular pile of hewn stone,
with formal _allées_, abundance of windows, extensive stables, and
broken vases. The ancient _seigneur_ probably retained no more of this
ancient possession than its name, while some Monsieur Le Blanc, or
Monsieur Le Noir, filled his place in the house, and "personne dans la
seigneurie."

A few leagues farther brought us to an eminence, whence we got a
beautiful glimpse of the sweeping river, and of a wide expanse of
fertile country less formally striped and more picturesque than the
preceding. Another grey castellated town lay on the verge of the river,
with towers that seemed even darker than ever. How different was all
this from the glare of our own objects! As we wound round the brow of
the height, extensive park-grounds, a village more modern, less
picturesque, and less dirty than common, with a large chateau in red
bricks, was brought in sight, in the valley. This was Rosny, the place
that gave his hereditary title to the celebrated Sully, as Baron and
Marquis de Rosny; Sully, a man, who, like Bacon, almost deserves the
character so justly given of the latter by Pope, that of "The wisest,
greatest, _meanest_, of mankind." The house and grounds were now the
property of Madame, as it is the etiquette to term the Duchesse de
Berri. The town in the distance, with the dark towers, was Mantes, a
place well known in the history of Normandy. We breakfasted at Le Cheval
Blanc. The church drew us all out, but it was less monstrous than that
of Louviers, and, as a cathedral, unworthy to be named with those of the
larger places.

The next stage brought us to St. Germain-en-Laye, or to the verge of the
circle of low mountains that surround the plains of Paris. Here we got
within the influence of royal magnificence and the capital. The
Bourbons, down to the period of the revolution, were indeed kings, and
they have left physical and moral impressions of their dynasty of seven
hundred years, that will require as long a period to eradicate. Nearly
every foot of the entire semi-circle of hills to the west of Paris is
historical, and garnished by palaces, pavilions, forests, parks,
aqueducts, gardens, or chases. A carriage terrace, of a mile in length,
and on a most magnificent scale in other respects, overlooks the river,
at an elevation of several hundred feet above its bed. The palace
itself, a quaint old edifice of the time of Francis I, who seems to have
had an architecture not unlike that of Elizabeth of England, has long
been abandoned as a royal abode. I believe its last royal occupant was
the dethroned James II. It is said to have been deserted by its owners,
because it commands a distant view of that silent monitor, the sombre
beautiful spire of St. Denis, whose walls shadow the vaults of the
Bourbons; they who sat on a throne not choosing to be thus constantly
reminded of the time when they must descend to the common fate and
crumbling equality of the grave.

An aqueduct, worthy of the Romans, gave an imposing idea of the scale on
which these royal works were conducted. It appeared, at the distance of
a league or two, a vast succession of arches, displaying a broader range
of masonry than I had ever before seen. So many years had passed since I
was last in Europe, that I gazed in wonder at its vastness.

From St. Germain we plunged into the valley, and took our way towards
Paris, by a broad paved avenue, that was bordered with trees. The road
now began to show an approach to a capital, being crowded with all sorts
of uncouth-looking vehicles, used as public conveyances. Still it was on
a Lilliputian scale as compared to London, and semi-barbarous even as
compared to one of our towns. Marly-la-Machine was passed; an hydraulic
invention to force water up the mountains to supply the different
princely dwellings of the neighbourhood. Then came a house of no great
pretension, buried in trees, at the foot of the bill. This was the
celebrated consular abode, Malmaison. After this we mounted to a hamlet,
and the road stretched away before us, with the river between, to the
unfinished Arc de l'Étoile, or the barrier of the capital. The evening
was soft, and there had been a passing shower. As the mist drove away, a
mass rose like a glittering beacon, beyond the nearest hill, proclaiming
Paris. It was the dome of the Hotel of the Invalids!

Though Paris possesses better points of view from its immediate vicinity
than most capitals, it is little seen from any of its ordinary
approaches until fairly entered. We descended to the river by a gentle
declivity. The chateau and grounds of Neuilly, a private possession of
the Duke of Orleans, lay on our left; the Bois de Boulogne, the carriage
promenade of the capital, on our right. We passed one of those
abortions, a _magnificent_ village, (Neuilly,) and ascended gently
towards the unfinished Arch of the Star. Bending around this imposing
memorial of--Heaven knows what! for it has had as many destinations as
France has had governors--we entered the iron gate of the barrier, and
found ourselves within the walls of Paris.

We were in the Avenue de Neuilly. The Champs Elysées, without verdure, a
grove divided by the broad approach, and moderately peopled by a
well-dressed crowd, lay on each side. In front, at the distance of a
mile, was a mass of foliage that looked more like a rich copse in park
than an embellishment of a town garden; and above this, again, peered
the pointed roofs of two or three large and high members of some vast
structure, sombre in colour and quaint in form. They were the pavilions
of the Tuileries.[4] A line of hotels became visible through trees and
shrubbery on the left, and on the right we soon got evidence that we
were again near the river. We had just left it behind us, and after a
_détour_ of several leagues, here it was again flowing in our front,
cutting in twain the capital.

[Footnote 4: Tuileries is derived from _Tuile_, or tile; the site of the
present gardens having been a tile-yard.]

Objects now grew confused, for they came fast. We entered and crossed a
paved area, that lay between the Seine, the Champs Elysées, the garden
of the Tuileries, and two little palaces of extraordinary beauty of
architecture. This was the place where Louis XVI. and his unfortunate
wife were beheaded. Passing between the two edifices last named, we came
upon the Boulevards, and plunged at once into the street-gaiety and
movement of this remarkable town.




LETTER V.

Paris in August 1826.--Montmartre.--The Octroi.--View of Paris.
--Montmorency.--Royal Residences.--Duke of Bordeaux.--Horse-racing.
--The Dauphine.--Popular feeling in Paris.--Royal Equipage.--Gardes du
Corps.--Policy of Napoleon.--Centralization.


To R COOPER, ESQ., COOPERSTOWN.

We were not a fortnight in Paris before we were quietly established, _en
bourgeois_, in the Faubourg St. Germain. Then followed the long and
wearying toil of sight-seeing. Happily, our time was not limited, and we
took months for that which is usually performed in a few days. This
labour is connected with objects that description has already rendered
familiar, and I shall say nothing of them, except as they may
incidentally belong to such parts of my subject as I believe worthy to
be noticed.

Paris was empty in the month of August 1826. The court was at St. Cloud;
the Duchesse de Berri at her favourite Dieppe; and the fashionable world
was scattered abroad over the face of Europe. Our own minister was at
the baths of Aix, in Savoy.

One of the first things was to obtain precise and accurate ideas of the
position and _entourage_ of the place. In addition to those enjoyed from
its towers, there are noble views of Paris from Montmartre and Père
Lachaise. The former has the best look-out, and thither we proceeded.
This little mountain is entirely isolated, forming no part of the
exterior circle of heights which environ the town. It lies north of the
walls, which cross its base. The ascent is so steep as to require a
winding road, and the summit, a table of a hundred acres, is crowned by
a crowded village, a church, and divers windmills. There was formerly a
convent or two, and small country-houses still cling to its sides,
buried in the shrubbery that clothe their terraces.

We were fortunate in our sky, which was well veiled in clouds, and
occasionally darkened by mists. A bright sun may suit particular scenes,
and peculiar moods of the mind, but every connoisseur in the beauties of
nature will allow that, as a rule, clouds, and very frequently a partial
obscurity, greatly aid a landscape. This is yet more true of a
bird's-eye view of a grey old mass of walls, which give up their
confused and dusky objects all the better for the absence of glare. I
love to study a place teeming with historical recollections, under this
light; leaving the sites of memorable scenes to issue, one by one, out
of the grey mass of gloom, as time gives up its facts from the obscurity
of ages.

Unlike English and American towns, Paris has scarcely any suburbs. Those
parts which are called its Faubourgs are, in truth, integral parts of
the city; and, with the exception of a few clusters of winehouses and
_guinguettes_, which have collected near its gates to escape the city
duties, the continuity of houses ceases suddenly with the _barrières_,
and, at the distance of half a mile from the latter, one is as
effectually in the country, so far as the eye is concerned, as if a
hundred leagues in the provinces. The unfenced meadows, vineyards,
lucerne, oats, wheat, and vegetables, in many places, literally reach
the walls. These walls are not intended for defence, but are merely a
financial _enceinte_, created for offensive operations against the
pockets of the inhabitants. Every town in France that has two thousand
inhabitants is entitled to set up an _octroi_ on its articles of
consumption, and something like four millions of dollars are taken
annually at the gates of Paris, in duties on this internal trade. It is
merely the old expedient to tax the poor, by laying impositions on food
and necessaries.

From the windmills of Montmartre, the day we ascended, the eye took in
the whole vast capital at a glance. The domes sprung up through the
mist, like starling balloons; and here and there the meandering stream
threw back a gleam of silvery light. Enormous roofs denoted the sites of
the palaces, churches, or theatres. The summits of columns, the crosses
of the minor churches, and the pyramids of pavilion tops, seemed
struggling to rear their heads from out the plain of edifices. A better
idea of the vastness of the principal structures was obtained here in
one hour, than could be got from the streets in a twelvemonth. Taking
the roofs of the palace, for instance, the eye followed its field of
slate and lead through a parallelogram for quite a mile. The sheet of
the French opera resembled a blue pond, and the aisles of Notre Dame and
St. Eustache, with their slender ribs and massive buttresses, towered so
much above the lofty houses around them, as to seem to stand on their
ridges. The church of St. Geneviève, the Pantheon of the revolution,
faced us on the swelling land of the opposite side of the town, but
surrounded still with crowded lines of dwellings; the Observatory
limiting equally the view, and the vast field of houses in that
direction.

Owing to the state of the atmosphere, and the varying light, the picture
before us was not that simply of a town, but, from the multiplicity and
variety of its objects, it was a vast and magnificent view. I have
frequently looked at Paris since from the same spot, or from its church
towers, when the strong sunlight reduced it to the appearance of confused
glittering piles, on which the eye almost refused to dwell; but, in a
clouded day, all the peculiarities stand out sombre and distinct,
resembling the grey accessories of the ordinary French landscape.

From the town we turned to the heights which surround it. East and
south-east, after crossing the Seine, the country lay in the waste-like
unfenced fields which characterize the scenery of this part of Europe.
Roads stretched away in the direction of Orleans, marked by the usual
lines of clipped and branchless trees. More to the west commence the
abrupt heights, which, washed by the river, enclose nearly half the wide
plain, like an amphitheatre. This has been the favourite region of the
kings of France, from the time of Louis XIII. down to the present day.
The palaces of Versailles, St. Germain, St. Cloud, and Meudon, all lie
in this direction, within short distances of the capital; and the royal
forests, avenues, and chases intersect it in every direction, as
mentioned before.

Farther north, the hills rise to be low mountains, though a wide and
perfectly level plain spreads itself between the town and their bases,
varying in breadth from two to four leagues. On the whole of this
expanse of cultivated fields, there was hardly such a thing as an
isolated house. Though not literally true, this fact was so nearly so as
to render the effect oddly peculiar, when one stood on the eastern
extremity of Montmartre, where, by turning southward, he looked down
upon the affluence and heard the din of a vast capital, and by turning
northward, he beheld a country with all the appliances of rural life,
and dotted by grey villages. Two places, however, were in sight, in this
direction, that might aspire to be termed towns. One was St. Denis, from
time immemorial the burying-place of the French kings; and the other was
Montmorency, the _bourg_ which gives its name to, or receives it from,
the illustrious family that is so styled; for I am unable to say which
is the fact. The church spire of the former is one of the most beautiful
objects in view from Montmartre, the church itself, which was desecrated
in the revolution, having been restored by Napoleon. St. Denis is
celebrated, in the Catholic annals, by the fact of the martyr, from whom
the name is derived, having walked after decapitation, with his head
under his arm, all the way from Paris to this very spot.

Montmorency is a town of no great size or importance, but lying on the
side of a respectable mountain, in a way to give the spectator more than
a profile, it appears to be larger than it actually is. This place is
scarcely distinguishable from Paris, under the ordinary light; but on a
day like that which we had chosen, it stood out in fine relief from the
surrounding fields, even the grey mass of its church being plainly
visible. If Paris is so beautiful and striking when seen from the
surrounding heights, there are many singularly fine pictures in the
bosom of the place itself. We rarely crossed the Pont Royal, during the
first month or two of our residence, without stopping the carriage to
gaze at the two remarkable views it offers. One is up the reach of the
Seine which stretches through the heart of the town, separated by the
island; and the other, in an opposite direction, looks down the reach by
which the stream flows into the meadows, on its way to the sea. The
first is a look into the avenues of a large town, the eye resting on the
quaint outlines and endless mazes of walls, towers, and roofs; while the
last is a prospect, in which the front of the picture is a collection of
some of the finest objects of a high state of civilization, and the
background a beautiful termination of wooded and decorated heights.

At first, one who is accustomed to the forms and movements of a sea-port
feels a little disappointment at seeing a river that bears nothing but
dingy barges loaded with charcoal and wine-casks. The magnificence of
the quays seems disproportioned to the trifling character of the
commerce they are destined to receive. But familiarity with the town
soon changes all these notions, and while we admit that Paris is
altogether secondary, so far as trade is concerned, we come to feel the
magnificence of her public works, and to find something that is pleasing
and picturesque, even in her huge and unwieldy wood and coal barges.
Trade is a good thing in its way, but its agents rarely contribute to
the taste, learning, manners, or morals of a nation.

The sight of the different interesting objects that encircle Paris
stimulated our curiosity to nearer views, and we proceeded immediately
to visit the environs. These little excursions occupied more than a
month, and they not only made us familiar with the adjacent country,
but, by compelling us to pass out at nearly every one of the twenty or
thirty different gates or barriers, as they are called, with a large
portion of the town also. This capital has been too often described to
render any further account of the principal objects necessary, and in
speaking of it, I shall endeavour to confine my remarks to things that I
think may still interest you by their novelty.

The royal residences in Paris at this time are, strictly speaking, but
two,--the Tuileries and the Palais Royal. The Louvre is connected with
the first, and it has no finished apartments that are occupied by any of
princely rank, most of its better rooms being unfinished, and are
occupied as cabinets or museums. A small palace, called the Elysée
Bourbon, is fitted up as a residence for the heir presumptive, the Duc
de Bordeaux; but, though it contains his princely toys, such as
miniature batteries of artillery, etc., he is much too young to maintain
a separate establishment. This little scion of royalty only completed
his seventh year not long after our arrival in France; on which occasion
one of those silly ceremonies, which some of the present age appear to
think inseparable from sound principles, was observed. The child was
solemnly and formally transferred from the care of the women to that of
the men. Up to this period, Madame la Vicomtesse de Gontaut-Biron had
been his governess, and she now resigned her charge into the hands of
the Baron de Damas, who had lately been Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Madame de Gontaut was raised to the rank of Duchess on the occasion. The
boy himself is said to have passed from the hands of the one party to
those of the other, in presence of the whole court, _absolutely naked_.
Some such absurdity was observed at the reception of Marie Antoinette,
it being a part of regal etiquette that a royal bride, on entering
France, should leave her old wardrobe, even to the last garment, behind
her. You will be amused to hear that there are people in Europe who
still attach great importance to a rigid adherence to all the old
etiquette at similar ceremonies. These are the men who believe it to be
essential that judges and advocates should wear wigs, in an age when,
their use being rejected by the rest of the world, their presence cannot
fail, if it excite any feeling, to excite that of inconvenience and
absurdity. There is such a thing as leaving society too naked, I admit;
but a _chemise_, at least, could not have injured the little Duke of
Bordeaux at this ceremony. Whenever a usage that is poetical in itself,
and which awakens a sentiment without doing violence to decency, or
comfort, or common sense, can be preserved, I would rigidly adhere to
it, if it were only for antiquity's sake; but, surely, it would be far
more rational for judges to wear false beards, because formerly Bacon
and Coke did not shave their chins, than it is for a magistrate to
appear on the bench with a cumbrous, hot, and inconvenient cloud of
powdered flax, or whatever may be the material on his poll, because our
ancestors, a century or two since, were so silly as to violate nature in
the same extraordinary manner.

Speaking of the Duke of Bordeaux, reminds me of an odd, and, indeed, in
some degree a painful scene, of which I was accidentally a witness, a
short time before the ceremony just mentioned. The _émigrés_ have
brought back with them into France a taste for horse-racing, and,
supported by a few of the English who are here, there are regular races,
spring and autumn, in the Champs de Mars. The course is one of the
finest imaginable, being more than a mile in circumference, and
surrounded by mounds of earth, raised expressly with that object, which
permit the spectators to overlook the entire field. The result is a
species of amphitheatric arena, in which any of the dramatic
exhibitions, that are so pleasing to this spectacle-loving nation, may
be enacted. Pavilions are permanently erected at the starting-post, and
one or two of these are usually fitted up for the use of the court,
whenever it is the pleasure of the royal family to attend, as was the
case at the time the little occurrence I am about to relate took place.

On this occasion Charles X. came in royal state, from St. Cloud,
accompanied by detachments of his guards, many carriages, several of
which were drawn by eight horses, and a cloud of mounted footmen. Most
of the dignitaries of the kingdom were present, in the different
pavilions, or stands, and nearly or quite all the ministers, together
with the whole diplomatic corps. There could not have been less than a
hundred thousand spectators on the mounds.

The racing itself was no great matter, being neither within time nor
well contested. The horses were all French, the trial being intended for
the encouragement of the French breeders, and the sports were yet too
recent to have produced much influence on the stock of the country.
During the heats, accompanied by a young American friend, I had strolled
among the royal equipages, in order to examine their magnificence, and
returning towards the course, we came out unexpectedly at a little open
space, immediately at one end of the pavilion in which the royal family
was seated. There were not a dozen people near us, and one of these was
a sturdy Englishman, evidently a tradesman, who betrayed a keen and a
truly national desire to get a look at the king. The head of a little
girl was just visible above the side of the pavilion, and my companion,
who, by a singular accident, not long before, had been thrown into
company with _les enfans de France_, as the royal children are called,
informed me that it was Mademoiselle d'Artois, the sister of the heir
presumptive. He had given me a favourable account of the children, whom
he represented as both lively and intelligent, and I changed my position
a little, to get a better look of the face of this little personage, who
was not twenty feet from the spot where we stood. My movement attracted
her attention; and, after looking down a moment into the small area in
which we were enclosed, she disappeared. Presently a lady looked over
the balustrade, and our Englishman seemed to be on tenter-hooks. Some
thirty or forty French gathered round us immediately, and I presume it
was thought none but loyal subjects could manifest so much desire to
gaze at the family, especially as one or two of the French clapped the
little princess, whose head now appeared and disappeared again, as if
she were earnestly pressing something on the attention of those within
the pavilion. In a moment the form of a pale and sickly-looking boy was
seen, the little girl, who was a year or two older, keeping her place at
his side. The boy was raised on the knee of a melancholy-looking and
rather hard-featured female of fifty, who removed his straw hat in order
to salute us. "These are the Dauphine and the Duc de Bordeaux,"
whispered my companion, who knew the person of the former by sight. The
Dauphine looked anxiously, and I thought mournfully, at the little
cluster we formed directly before her, as if waiting to observe in what
manner her nephew would be received. Of course my friend and myself, who
were in the foreground, stood uncovered; as gentlemen we could not do
less, nor as _foreign_ gentlemen could we very well do more. Not a
Frenchman, however, even touched his hat! On the other hand, the
Englishman straddled his legs, gave a wide sweep with his beaver, and
uttered as hearty a hurrah as if he had been cheering a member of
parliament who gave gin in his beer. The effect of this single,
unaccompanied, unanswered cheer, was both ludicrous and painful. The
poor fellow himself seemed startled at hearing his own voice amid so
profound a stillness, and checking his zeal as unexpectedly as he had
commenced its exhibition, he looked furiously around him and walked
surlily away. The Dauphine followed him with her eyes. There was no
mistaking his gaitered limbs, dogged mien, and florid countenance; be
clearly was not French, and those that were, as clearly turned his
enthusiasm into ridicule. I felt sorry for her, as, with a saddened
face, she set down the boy, and withdrew her own head within the
covering of the pavilion. The little Mademoiselle d'Artois kept her
bright looks, in a sort of wonder, on us, until the circumspection of
those around her, gave her a hint to disappear.

This was the first direct and near view I got of the true state of
popular feeling in Paris towards the reigning family. According to the
journals in the interest of the court, enthusiasm was invariably
exhibited whenever any of their princes appeared in public; but the
journals in every country, our own dear and shrewd republic not
excepted, are very unsafe guides for those who desire truth.

I am told that the style of this court has been materially altered, and
perhaps improved, by the impetuous character of Napoleon. The king
rarely appears in public with less than eight horses, which are usually
in a foam. His liveries are not showy, neither are the carriages as neat
and elegant as one would expect. The former are blue and white, with a
few slight ornaments of white and red lace, and the vehicles are showy,
large and even magnificent, but, I think, without good taste. You will
be surprised to hear that he drives with what in America we call "Dutch
collars." Six of the horses are held in hand, and the leaders are
managed by a postilion. There is always one or more empty carriages,
according to the number of the royal personages present, equipped in
every respect like those which are filled, and which are held in reserve
against accidents; a provision, by the way, that is not at all
unreasonable in those who scamper over the broken pavements, in and
about Paris, as fast as leg can be put to the ground.

Notwithstanding the present magnificence of the court, royalty is shorn
of much of its splendour in France, since the days of Louis XVI. Then a
city of a hundred thousand souls (Versailles) was a mere dependant of
the crown; lodgings for many hundred _abbés_, it is said, were provided
in the palace alone, and a simple representation at the palace opera
cost a fortune.

It is not an easy matter to come at the real cost of the kingly office
in this country, all the expenditures of the European governments being
mystified in such a way, as to require a very intimate knowledge of the
details to give a perfectly clear account of them. But, so far as I have
been able to ascertain, the charges that arise from this feature of the
system do not fall much short, if indeed they do any, of eight millions
of dollars annually. Out of this sum, however, the king pays the extra
allowances of his guards, the war office taking the same view of all
classes of soldiers, after distinguishing between foot and cavalry. You
will get an idea of the luxury of royalty by a short account of the
_gardes du corps_. These troops are all officers, the privates having
the rank and receiving the pay of lieutenants. Their duty, as the name
implies, is to have the royal person in their especial care, and there
is always a guard of them in an ante-chamber of the royal apartments.
They are heavy cavalry, and when they mount guard in the palaces, their
arm is a carabine. A party of them always appear near the carriage of
the king, or indeed near that of any of the reigning branch of the
family. There are said to be four regiments or companies of them, of
four hundred men each; but it strikes me the number must be exaggerated.
I should think, however, that there are fully a thousand of them. In
addition to these selected troops, there are three hundred Swiss, of the
Swiss and royal guards; of the latter, including all arms, there must be
many thousands. These are the troops that usually mount guard in and
about all the palaces. The annual budget of France appears in the
estimates at about a _milliard_, or a thousand millions of francs; but
the usual mystifications are resorted to, and the truth will give the
annual central expenses of the country at not less, I think, than two
hundred millions of dollars. This sum, however, covers many items of
expenditure, that we are accustomed to consider purely local. The
clergy, for instance, are paid out of it, as is a portion of the cost of
maintaining the roads. On the other hand, much money is collected, as a
general regulation, that does not appear in the budget. Few or no
churches are built, and there are charges for masses, interments,
christenings, and fees for a hundred things, of which no account is
taken in making out the sum total of the cost of government.

It was the policy of Napoleon to create a system of centralization, that
should cause everything to emanate from himself. The whole organization
of government had this end in view, and all the details of the
departments have been framed expressly to further this object. The
prefects are no more than so many political _aides_, whose duty it is to
carry into effect the orders that emanate from the great head, and lines
of telegraphs are established all over France, in such a way that a
communication may be sent from the Tuileries, to the remotest corner of
the kingdom, in the course of a few hours. It has been said that one of
the first steps towards effecting a revolution, ought to be to seize the
telegraphs at Paris, by means of which such information and orders could
be sent into the provinces, as the emergency might seem to require.

This system of centralization has almost neutralized the advancement of
the nation, in a knowledge of the usages and objects of the political
liberty that the French have obtained, by bitter experience, from other
sources. It is the constant aim of that portion of the community which
understands the action of free institutions, to increase the powers of
the municipalities, and to lessen the functions of the central
government; but their efforts are resisted with a jealous distrust of
everything like popular dictation. Their municipal privileges are,
rightly enough, thought to be the entering wedges of real liberty. The
people ought to manage their own affairs, just as far as they can do so
without sacrificing their interests for want of a proper care, and here
is the starting point of representation. So far from France enjoying
such a system, however, half the time a bell cannot be hung in a parish
church, or a bridge repaired, without communications with and orders
from Paris.




LETTER VI.

Letters of Introduction.--European Etiquette.--Diplomatic Entertainments.
--Ladies in Coffee-houses.--French Hospitality.--Mr. Canning at Paris.
--Parisian Hotels.--French Lady at Washington.--Receptions in Paris
and in New York.--Mode of Announcement.--Republican Affectation.
--Hotel Monaco.--Dinner given to Mr. Canning.--Diplomatic Etiquette.
--European Ambassadors.--Prime Minister of France.--Mr. Canning.
--Count Pozzo di Borgo.--Precedency at Dinner.--American Etiquette.
--A French Dinner.--Servants.--Catholic Fasting.--Conversation with
Canning.--English Prejudice against Americans.


To MRS. POMEROY, COOPERSTOWN, NEW YORK.

I quitted America with some twenty letters of introduction, that had
been pressed upon me by different friends, but which were carefully
locked up in a secretary, where they still remain, and are likely to
remain for ever, or until they are destroyed. As this may appear a
singular resolution for one who left his own country to be absent for
years, I shall endeavour to explain it. In the first place, I have a
strong repugnance to pushing myself on the acquaintance of any man: this
feeling may, in fact, proceed from pride, but I have a disposition to
believe that it proceeds, in part, also from a better motive. These
letters of introduction, like verbal introductions, are so much abused
in America, that the latter feeling, perhaps I might say both feelings,
are increased by the fact. Of all the people in the world we are the
most prodigal of these favours, when self-respect and propriety would
teach us we ought to be among the most reserved, simply because the
character of the nation is so low, that the European, more than half the
time, fancies he is condescending when he bestows attentions on our
people at all. Other travellers may give you a different account of the
matter, but let every one be responsible for his own opinions and facts.
Then a friend who, just as we left home, returned from Europe after an
absence of five years, assured me that he found his letters of but
little use; that nearly every agreeable acquaintance he made was the
result of accident, and that the Europeans in general were much more
cautious in giving and receiving letters of this nature than ourselves.

The usages of all Europe, those of the English excepted, differ from our
own on the subject of visits. There the stranger, or the latest arrival,
is expected to make the first visit, and an inquiry for your address is
always taken for an intimation that your acquaintance would be
acceptable. Many, perhaps most Americans, lose a great deal through
their provincial breeding, in this respect, in waiting for attentions
that it is their duty to invite, by putting themselves in the way of
receiving them. The European usage is not only the most rational, but it
is the most delicate. It is the most rational, as there is a manifest
absurdity in supposing, for instance, that the inhabitant of a town is
to know whenever a visitor from the country arrives; and it is the most
delicate, as it leaves the newcomer, who is supposed to know his own
wishes best, to decide for himself whether he wishes to make
acquaintances or not. In short, our own practices are provincial and
rustic, and cannot exist when the society of the country shall have
taken the usual phases of an advanced civilization. Even in England, in
the higher classes, the cases of distinguished men excepted, it is usual
for the stranger to seek the introduction.

Under such circumstances, coupled with the utter insignificance of an
ordinary individual in a town like Paris, you will easily understand
that we had the first months of our residence entirely to ourselves. As
a matter of course, we called on our own minister and his wife; and, as
a matter of course, we have been included in the dinners and parties
that they are accustomed to give at this season of the year. This,
however, has merely brought us in contact with a chance-medley of our
own countrymen, these diplomatic entertainments being quite obviously a
matter of accident, so far as the set is concerned. The dinners of your
banker, however, are still worse, since with them the visiting-list is
usually a mere extract from the ledger.

Our privacy has not been without its advantages. It has enabled us to
visit all the visible objects without the incumbrance of engagements, and
given me leisure to note and to comment on things that might otherwise
have been overlooked. For several months we have had nothing to do but to
see sights, get familiarized with a situation that, at first, we found
singularly novel, and to brush up our French.

I never had sufficient faith in the popular accounts of the usages of
other countries, to believe one-half of what I have heard. I distrusted
from the first the fact of ladies--I mean real, _bona fide_ ladies, women
of sentiment, delicacy, taste, and condition--frequenting public
eating-houses, and habitually living, without the retirement and reserve
that is so necessary to all _women_, not to say _men_, of the _caste_. I
found it difficult, therefore, to imagine I should meet with many females
of condition in _restaurans_ and _cafés_. Such a thing might happen on an
emergency, but it was assailing too much all those feelings and tastes
which become inherent in refinement, to suppose that the tables of even
the best house of the sort in Paris could be honoured by the presence of
such persons, except under particular circumstances. My own observation
corroborated this opinion, and, in order to make sure of the fact, I have
put the question to nearly every Frenchwoman of rank it has since been my
good fortune to become sufficiently acquainted with to take the liberty.
The answer has been uniform. Such things are sometimes done, but rarely;
and even then it is usual to have the service in a private room. One old
lady, a woman perfectly competent to decide on such a point, told me
frankly:--"We never do it, except by way of a frolic, or when in a humour
which induces people to do many other silly and unbecoming things. Why
should we go t

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/19983